Potential wage law violations are prompting the U.S. Labor Department to investigate the pay practices of some leading home building companies. Firms will be required to turn over a wide array of records in response to complaints about pay violations. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, PulteGroup Inc., Lennar Corp., D.R. Horton Inc., and KB Home have received letters requesting records. While a Labor Department spokeswoman confirmed the investigation to the Wall Street Journal, it would not discuss the matter further. A copy of one of the letters, dated August 1, was obtained and reviewed by the Journal, which reports that the document states that the Labor Department implemented the probe under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Act, said the Journal, controls issues concerning overtime pay and limitations on teenage employees. The letter mandates that the home builder provide the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay rates, and hours worked for all of its staff for the past two years and for the names of all contractors hired in the past year, said the Journal. No legal violation was cited. The Labor Department is seeking information on residential home builders payments to workers to determine if there was a failure to meet minimum wage laws or to pay appropriate overtime pay. The industry is a target because, among other things, it employs a high number of immigrant workers, who may be vulnerable to wage abuses, a report from The New York
times says. Leading Builders of America, a trade group, said the Labor Department’s request was “overbroad,” The Journal said. But in 2008, the Laborers International Union of North America released a study that described home builder workers as the “newest victims” of the housing market crisis, citing issues including underpayment of minium wage and overtime laws.
