Collier tree company fined over unpaid OT wages

Sidelines agrees to pay $87,000 to settle case

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on Tuesday an agreement with a Collier-based tree service company to pay nearly $87,000 in back wages and a penalty to compensate more than five dozen employees for extra hours worked.

Sidelines Tree Service failed to pay the time-and-a-half overtime rate for hours worked over 40 hours a week, according to an investigation by the Labor Department’s wage and hour division. The tree trimming and removal company, found in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, agreed to pay $43,304 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to 69 employees.

The agency’s investigators found the company paid employees straight-time rates for their overtime hours. The company also failed to keep required records of the number of hours worked by one employee and failed to display a poster informing employees of their rights under federal labor law.

“The resolution of this case puts these wages into the hands of the people who rightfully earned them,” said John DuMont, district director for the agency’s wage and hour division in Pittsburgh. “We hope that other employers take this as an opportunity to examine their own payroll practices to ensure they’re in compliance.”

Sidelines Tree Service was founded in August 2011 by just two people removing and trimming trees, according to its website, but then “quickly expanded to a fullservice tree and landscape business.”