Security firm pays $110,754 in back wages

PROVIDENCE – Security Consultants Group Inc., a Tennesee-based company with offices in Lincoln, has paid a total of $110,754 in back wages to 69 employees to settle allegations that SCG violated federal wage and hour laws.
SCG provides security services, including guards, to federal facilities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. An investigation by the Rhode Island office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that those security guards are covered by the federal Service Contract Act, the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The probe found that SCG had failed to pay workers for the time spend arming and disarming for their jobs, as well as the time spent traveling to their guard posts from central locations, the Labor Department said. SCG also failed to pay overtime to guard supervisors who, because they were not paid a guaranteed salary, were entitled to be paid time and a half for each hour worked beyond 40 per week.
“The company cooperated fully in our investigation and agreed to future compliance and the payment of the back wages in full,” Dianne Miller, director of the Wage and Hour Division district office in Hartford, which oversees both Rhode Island and Connecticut, said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
“However,” Miller said, “this case should remind federal contractors to pay careful attention to the requirements of federal wage and hour laws.”
To learn more about the requirements of federal wage and hour laws, call the U.S. Department of Labor’s toll-free hot line at 1-866-4US-WAGE or the Wage and Hour Division’s Providence office at 528-4431, or visit www.wagehour.dol.gov.