Pre-Shift Wait Time Costs NJ Drywall Firm $725K in FLSA Case

A New Jersey drywall installer will pay $725,000 after federal investigators found it failed to pay overtime to 48 workers for pre-shift work performed while they waited for transportation to job sites.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division investigated P & B Partitions Inc. and found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime rules. The company didn't just miscalculate pay — it refused to pay the owed wages even after the investigation concluded, according to the DOL.

A consent judgment entered in federal court in New Jersey breaks the $725,000 into three parts:

• $350,000 in back wages
• An equal $350,000 in liquidated damages
• $25,000 in civil penalties

What does the ruling change for employers?

The judgment reinforces a position the DOL has stated plainly: employees must be paid for pre-shift work done while they wait for transportation to the worksite. That wait time counts as hours worked when the employer requires or benefits from it, and those hours can push employees past the 40-hour weekly threshold that triggers FLSA overtime pay.

For HR teams, the case touches several people-process decisions at once. Timekeeping systems have to capture the full arc of a shift — from the moment workers report to a staging point or van pickup, not just from arrival at the job site. Transportation logistics, common in construction and trades, create the exact exposure P & B Partitions faced.

Why the penalty grew

Back wages alone would have cost the company $350,000. The matching $350,000 in liquidated damages doubled that bill, and the additional $25,000 in civil penalties pushed the total to $725,000.

The refusal to pay after the investigation likely didn't help. DOL enforcement outcomes routinely escalate when employers resist correction, and liquidated damages are designed to make wronged workers whole without waiting for separate litigation.

What should HR leaders watch next?

Compliance officers can treat the case as a prompt to audit off-the-clock time in their own operations — shuttle waits, gear-up periods, security checks and mandatory meetings all carry the same FLSA risk. With the Wage and Hour Division continuing to pursue pre-shift and post-shift work claims, employers that transport crews to job sites should expect this enforcement theory to appear again in future DOL actions.