Benefits August 26, 2004

DoL Reaches $1.9 Million Settlement for Janitorial Backwages

August 26, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Department of Labor (DoL) has reached a $1.9 million settlement with Global Building Services Inc over allegations the janitorial services company failed to pay workers overtime.
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Newhall, California-based Global Building Services agreed to the settlement after an investigation by the DoL’s Wage and Hour Division revealed that workers were paid a fixed hourly wage, usually in cash, for all hours worked. The affected employees, most of whom are Hispanic, typically worked eight hours per day, six or seven days per week. However, they were not paid one-and-one-half times their regular rate of pay for work hours in excess of 40 per week as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the DoL said in a news release.

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The terms of the settlement are outlined in a consent judgment entered with the US District Court of Central California on August 24. The back wages compensate employees for work performed prior to February 11, 2003. The settlement impact 775 Global Building Services employees, more than 600 of which reside in California. The remaining impacted employees reside in parts of Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Mexico.

Global Building Services, which provides janitorial services to Target stores, cooperated with the investigation and has agreed to comply with federal wage and hour laws in the future, the DoL said.

Compliance August 25, 2004

Public Fund Officials Demand Political Contribution Disclosures

August 25, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - In the latest example of continuing activism by institutional investors, an 11-member group of state and city investment officers on Wednesday called for publicly traded companies to be forced to disclose their political contributions.
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The group called on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require the annual disclosure of contributions at the national, state, and local levels, to candidates, political parties and their conventions, ballot measure campaigns, issue ad campaigns and all independent political committees, including independent 527 organizations.

“Shareholders have a right to know how the companies they own are using their money in the political arena,” the investment officials wrote in a  letter to SEC Chairman William Donaldson.  “We ask you and your fellow SEC commissioners to let the sun shine on corporate contributions so that the tens of millions of shareholders in America’s public companies can know how their money is being used in the nation’s political life.”

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A corporation’s record of political contributions “is potentially valuable additional information about a company’s values, business strategy, and future prospects,” the officials continued. “For those funds and individuals who want to make sure their investments are consistent with their values, full disclosure is a vital ingredient in their investment decisions.”

The group includes:

  • Oregon Treasurer Randall Edwards
  • Iowa Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald
  • Sean Harrigan, president, California Public Employees’ Retirement System
  • New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi
  • Maine Treasurer Dale McCormick
  • Kentucky Treasurer Jonathan Miller
  • North Carolina Richard Moore
  • Connecticut Treasurer Denise Nappier
  • Vermont Treasurer Jeb Spaulding
  • New York City Comptroller William Thompson, Jr.
  • California Treasurer Phil Angelides.

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