In a multi-year so-called “investigation” that cost more money that was “recovered,” the U.S. Dept. of Labor (DOL) announced yesterday they’ve forced Chesapeake Energy, Citrus Energy and Anadarko Petroleum (and perhaps others) to pay $4.5 million in back wages to some 5,300 oil and gas workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The apparent “violation” is that these workers, working for subcontractors (not directly for the energy companies themselves), in some cases worked more than 40 hours in a given week but didn’t get time-and-a-half wages. We’re certainly not against playing by the rules, but it sure seems like utter folly to hype this as some sort of victory by Obama’s Labor Department–to work for more than two years and come up with a thimble-full of violations and carp and complain about how fractured the energy industry is–the same industry that, because of all those many subcontractors, has generated several hundred thousands new jobs in PA & WV that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Here’s the press release by the DOL…
