Maine sues in overtime dispute State: Delivery firm owes back wages to 25 employees

BREWER – A Pennsylvania company that delivers packages for global shipping giant DHL is being sued by the state for allegedly failing to pay overdue overtime to about two dozen of its workers in Maine.

The company, Harrisburg, Pa.-based Rydbom Express Inc., was hired by DHL last March to deliver its packages in eastern Maine. The previous contractor, Black Bear Courier of Orono, was unsuccessful in renewing its contract with DHL after its employees voted a year ago to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Gwendolyn Thomas, assistant attorney general for Maine, said Tuesday the state has estimated that Rydbom Express owes approximately 25 of its Maine employees for overtime earned between March and July 2005. The state Attorney General’s Office has filed suit against Rydbom Express in Penobscot County Superior Court demanding that the company pay back overtime wages to the workers, an additional monetary amount equal to those overtime wages, and civil fines and costs to the state.

“We don’t have an exact number, but we believe [the amount owed in overtime] is between $20,000 and $25,000, which is pretty substantial,” Thomas said.

In July of last year, the company rehired and agreed to pay back regular wages to 12 unionized former Black Bear drivers who had picketed DHL’s Parkway South offices for 13 weeks. In the interim, Rydbom had hired 22 nonunion drivers to fill its routes, according to Teamsters officials. Rydbom rehired the union drivers after the National Labor Relations Board agreed with the Teamsters’ claim that Rydbom Express broke federal labor laws by not rehiring them.

Anne Harriman, director of the wage and hour division of the Maine Department of Labor, said Tuesday the state has had to estimate figures for how much money is owed and how many employees are affected. State officials have had no reply from the company, despite repeated efforts on their part to directly contact Rydbom on the matter, she said.

“We have never seen the payroll records for the employees,” Harriman said. “The company has not been cooperative.”

Doug Rydbom, owner of the company, and David Austin, a Bangor attorney who Thomas said serves as Rydbom’s company clerk, did not respond Tuesday to messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.

According to Thomas, certain companies, including Rydbom Express, are required to pay their Maine employees 1.5 times each employee’s regular hourly wage for every hour more than 40 that each employee works in one week. Employers that are required to pay overtime and fail to do so by law have to reimburse the affected employees retroactively, she said.

Rydbom has until Jan. 29 to reply to the complaint the state has filed in court, Thomas said.

The 12 drivers who picketed DHL’s local offices were among 23 former Black Bear employees in Brewer who had not been rehired by Rydbom. After they were rehired by the company, the union and Rydbom agreed the union drivers would receive $76,000 in back regular wages.

Some former Black Bear drivers, including half a dozen or so who worked in Presque Isle, were not eventually rehired and were not represented by the Teamsters’ complaint to federal officials because they got jobs elsewhere after Rydbom did not offer them employment, union officials have said.

James Carson, president of Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, did not respond Tuesday to a message seeking comment on the state’s lawsuit.

DHL officials have denied that the global company or union organizing played any role in the local labor dispute but Teamsters officials have insisted DHL ultimately is responsible for the drivers, who wear DHL uniforms and deliver DHL packages. The shipping company has been involved in similar labor disputes in other parts of the country, union officials have said.

DHL was founded in San Francisco in 1969 but now is owned by Deutsche Post World Net, the former national postal service in Germany. DHL has more than 170,000 employees worldwide and offers service in more than 220 countries and territories, according to the company’s official Web site.

Deutsche Post World Net earned more than $52 billion in revenue in 2004, the Web site indicated.