P & B Partitions Inc., a drywall installer based in Voorhees, New Jersey, must pay 48 workers $350,000 in back wages and another $350,000 in damages, the U.S. Labor Department says. A federal judge entered the consent judgment on June 26, 2026, and the department announced it on October 22. The company also owes $25,000 in civil penalties.
The department’s release puts the total at $725,000. Split only across the back wages, the 48 workers are due about $7,292 each. With the matching damages, the average climbs to roughly $14,583 per worker.
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the Labor Department office that enforces federal pay law, found that the company did not pay employees for work done before their shifts began. Workers had to wait for transportation to job sites, and that waiting time went unpaid. The division says that violated the overtime rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the main federal wage law.
The question for anyone who has worked for a contractor that moves crews between sites is simple. Does time spent getting ready or waiting for a ride count as work? In this case, the Labor Department says it does. And workers who think a past employer owes them money have a free government search to check, which is described below.
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What the drywall crews were owed
The $350,000 is unpaid overtime. The other $350,000 is what the law calls liquidated damages, an extra payment equal to the back wages that goes to the workers themselves. The $25,000 in civil penalties is separate. It is a fine, not worker pay.
Charlene Rachor, WHD district director for southern New Jersey, said that tasks done to prepare for the job are work that must be paid, including time spent waiting to reach the worksite. Jeffrey S. Rogoff, the Labor Department’s regional solicitor in New York, said employers can face costly consequences if they do not comply with federal wage law.
The release does not say how many hours were involved, what the workers earned per hour, or over what period the violations ran. It also does not describe a separate claims process. It points workers who believe the division collected money for them to its online search tool.
A second case with 339 workers
The same week brought a bigger headcount. On October 19 the department announced a consent judgment against Coway USA Inc., a California-based home appliance company that installs and maintains water and air filtration products. The court entered it on Sept. 9, according to the release.
Coway agreed to pay $400,000 in back overtime and $400,000 in damages to 339 employees in the Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. areas, plus $10,000 in penalties for willful violations. That works out to about $1,180 per worker in back wages. The division says the company paid piece rates without counting mandatory meetings and loading time, left bonuses and commissions out of overtime math, and often cut hours recorded on timecards.
How the Labor Department holds the money
Collecting a judgment is one step. Finding every worker is another. When the division cannot locate someone, it keeps the wages. Its Workers Owed Wages page says, “If we cannot find an employee, we hold their back wages for three years.” After that, the page says, “we are required to send the money to the U.S. Treasury.”
That three-year clock is the part many former workers never hear about. A person who moved, changed a phone number or never learned of the case can simply miss the money. Once it reaches the Treasury, the page offers no route back.
The free search and how a claim works
The division runs a database called Workers Owed Wages, or WOW, at webapps.dol.gov/wow. It lets workers search by employer name, with an optional state filter, then look for their own name. Using it costs nothing.
The division’s instructions run in five steps:
- Enter the employer’s name.
- Search for the worker’s own name to confirm wages are held.
- Submit current contact information.
- Sign and upload the Back Wage Claim Form (WH-60) with proof of identity, using a login.gov account.
- Wait about six weeks for processing. Payments are made electronically.
Workers with questions can call the division’s toll-free helpline at 1-866-487-9243. The same number takes complaints, which the division says are kept confidential, and it says employers may not retaliate against workers who file one.
What counts as overtime work
Under the FLSA, covered employees who are not exempt must get one and one-half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. The P & B Partitions case shows that unpaid time before a shift can count toward those hours.
The division also shows where to start if a current employer is shorting pay. A worker can file a complaint by phone or through the online form, and the division decides whether an investigation is the right step. The complaints page does not list a filing deadline, so the helpline is the place to ask how far back a claim can reach.
Is back pay waiting under an old employer’s name?
Anyone who worked for P & B Partitions or Coway should search those names first. So should workers who left any employer after a pay dispute. The three-year hold means older cases can still pay out, but the window closes on each one.
The department has not said whether any workers in these two cases are still unlocated. The search will show whether the division is holding wages under a given company name.
Think an old job owes back pay?
Back wages are only one of the places money sits unclaimed, and the Labor Department gives up its hold after three years. Pay from an old job, a forgotten pension or a savings bond can slip away the same way when no one checks the right official site in time.
Find Money Owed to You walks through every official place money with a name on it waits, including “pensions from old jobs, even companies that no longer exist.” It lays out the 8 searches step by step, plus a worksheet for a twice-a-year sweep, and points to the official sites for each one.
Get the 8-search checklist for money waiting from old jobs →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
