L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace LLC has agreed to pay $261,899 in back wages to 361 workers employed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division that found employees were not being compensated in compliance with the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act.
“Government contracts specify in detailed language how pay and benefits are to be determined, and employers are required to follow these rules so workers are fully paid,” Janet Campbell, district director of the Wage and Hour Division’s office in Atlanta, said in a U.S. Department of Labor press release.
“Contractors are well aware of these obligations when they bid and when the contracts are awarded. This investigation demonstrates the Labor Department’s commitment to ensuring that employees are paid the wages they have rightfully earned and to leveling the playing field among all employers who do business with the government.”
The division’s investigation determined that the employer incorrectly computed employees’ vacation benefits as required by the Service Contract Act. The law requires that employers use employees’ anniversary dates to determine the amounts of vacation benefits due. L-3 Communications Vertex had instead used the date of the company’s first day of performance on the contract at the Army airfield to calculate vacation benefits for all employees. The Service Contract Act requires that calculation be made using the employee’s anniversary date even when the employee worked for a predecessor contractor on the same contract.
The employer has agreed to comply fully with the Service Contract Act in the future and to pay the back wages found due in full.
L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace is an aviation and aerospace technical services company, managing and servicing fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft, as well as other equipment, primarily for government customers. The company is based in Madison, Miss.
The Service Contract Act requires that contractors and subcontractors performing services on covered federal contracts in excess of $2,500 must pay their service workers no less than the wages and fringe benefits prevailing in the locality or rates contained in a predecessor contractor’s collective bargaining agreement.