A truck stop on Tonnele Avenue in Jersey City has been hit with a large bill for overtime owed to its employees.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, Petroline Inc., operator of Putnam Truck Stop, at 565 Tonnele Ave., cheated 15 of its gas station attendants out of $100,000 in overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“Employers must understand that paying workers a fixed salary does not automatically excuse them from paying overtime. Unless a specific exemption applies, even workers paid on a salary basis must be paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a week,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Paula Ruffin in Mountainside, New Jersey. “The Wage and Hour Division offers numerous tools to help employers learn about their responsibilities and how to comply with the law. We encourage employers to reach out to us for assistance.”
In recent years, wage theft has attracted increased attention from lawmakers. In 2019, New Jersey passed one of the strongest laws against wage-theft in the country. In 2022 Representative Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut introduced a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act protect workers from wage theft.