The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $101,690 in back wages and damages owed to 31 employees of a Houston plumbing contractor who paid them a salary but failed to pay an overtime premium for hours over 40 in a workweek.
Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division determined Amailey Plumbing LLC categorized service technicians and apprentice helpers as salaried employees and did not pay them the correct overtime rate as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division calculated that the contractor owed $50,845 in back overtime wages and an equal amount in damages.
Founded in 2008, Amailey Plumbing LLC offers plumbing services in the Houston area for new home construction, routine system cleaning, maintenance, repair, and response for plumbing emergencies.
Top photo: Department of Labor Building, Washington, D.C. Photographer: Ezra Amacher, Insurance Journal
The incident, which hasn’t been previously reported, is now being probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to five people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Muneeb and Suhaib Akhter denied any wrongdoing in separate interviews with Bloomberg News.
The damage attributed to the brothers includes the destruction of more than 30 databases and the removal of more than 1,800 files related to one government project, according to the cybersecurity firm’s report. Opexus’ own investigation found that the brothers’ conduct led to an outage of two key software systems used by government agencies to process and manage their records, and in some cases a permanent loss of data.
Opexus declined to comment for this story.
The federal government processes an avalanche of electronic records every year. Opexus, which is based in Washington, is one of the largest providers of digital tools to manage the deluge. The company says it serves “over 100,000 government users and 200 public institutions in the U.S. and Canada” and helps them to “modernize government processes and workflows.” In January, Opexus merged with Casepoint, a software company that also offers tools for corporations and government agencies to process records, including those in litigation, compliance and investigative settings.
