For instance....Found This...Audit: InfoSpace owes overtime pay
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From the April 6, 2001 print edition
seattle.bcentral.com
Audit: InfoSpace owes overtime pay
Rami Grunbaum Managing Editor
Current and former employees of InfoSpace Corp. of Bellevue are due an estimated $3 million to $5 million in unpaid overtime, a federal audit has found.
The audit, disclosed this week in the Internet company's annual Securities and Exchange Commission filing, found that more than 200 employees may be due overtime pay, said InfoSpace chief financial officer Tammy Halstead.
A U.S. Department of Labor spokesman in Seattle, Michael Shimizu, said his agency could not comment because the case is "still under investigation."
But state Department of Labor and Industries officials said that even at $3 million, the total would rank high in the annals of unpaid overtime cases.
"That'd certainly be one of the biggest ones I've ever seen," said Jim Ashcraft, who oversees such cases as a compliance specialty supervisor in the department's Seattle employment standards unit.
"If we've had a good year collecting unpaid wages for all our agents, we'd collect that much," agreed Christy Heiter, an industrial relations agent in Bellevue for the department.
Halstead said the company reserved $3 million in its fourth-quarter financial results to help pay overtime claims. InfoSpace has mailed out forms to all past and present employees who might be eligible for back pay, she said.
She said those affected are "primarily employees coming from the Go2Net side of the merger," referring to InfoSpace's $1.6 billion October acquisition of Seattle-based Go2Net Inc.
Halstead said the Department of Labor inquiry was "part of a routine audit that they do," and did not result from any employee complaints.
She described the rules governing overtime pay as "a gray area," adding that "If you ask 10 companies in Seattle, you would find 10 different approaches." |
