THOUSAND OAKS : Company Agrees to Pay Overtime Wages

A Thousand Oaks paving company in the midst of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings has agreed to pay $20,940 in overdue overtime wages to 51 employees.

Asphalt Professionals will reimburse workers who spent more than 40 hours a week on the job without receiving time-and-a-half compensation between April 1, 1991, and Feb. 7, 1992, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Friday.

But the company will do so under protest, said Ray Bowen, Asphalt’s attorney.

Bowen said Asphalt’s employees had asked for extra work and volunteered to forgo overtime pay. The company, which paves streets and parking lots for cities and businesses, filed for bankruptcy in December with $500,000 to $750,000 of debt, Bowen said.

“Asphalt Professionals has not acknowledged that they did anything wrong,” he said. “It was a simple agreement--rather than fight, they will pay under the (Chapter 11) reorganization plan.”

Yet even if the firm’s employees consented to receiving standard hourly wages for overtime work, such an arrangement violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, said Jerald Hall, assistant district director for the Department of Labor. Reimbursements to individual workers will range from a few dollars to more than $1,600, he said.

“The law stands regardless,” Hall said. “It was written with the idea that it’s better to have more people involved in the work force than to have people working lots of hours without extra compensation.”