Labor Department recovers $1.73 million in underpaid overtime wages

The Labor Department recovered $1,730,598 in back wages for 1,666 hourly workers after finding that The State Group Industrial (USA) Ltd. Inc. failed to include incentive bonuses in overtime calculations at Ford Motor Co.’s Stanton, Tennessee electric vehicle and battery campus. The mistake left employees without the full overtime premium owed for hours worked over 40 in a workweek, and the average recovery topped $1,000 per worker.

Wage and Hour Division Administrator Andrew Rogers said the company violated federal law by excluding bonuses from overtime calculations.

BlueOval City is Ford’s nearly six-square-mile EV and battery manufacturing campus in West Tennessee. Ford’s project is part of an $11.4 billion investment expected to create nearly 11,000 jobs across Tennessee and Kentucky, including close to 6,000 in Stanton.

The Fair Labor Standards Act generally requires pay of not less than time and one-half the regular rate for hours over 40, and nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments generally have to be included in that regular rate. Federal regulations at 29 C.F.R. 778.208 and 778.209 also require most remuneration to be counted in regular-rate math, and to be apportioned back over the period in which certain bonuses were earned.

Small teams often rely on variable schedules, seasonal labor, event pay, stipends, shift differentials and retention bonuses tied to volunteer drives or pickup campaigns. If any of those payments are used for staff who also work overtime, payroll has to account for them before checks go out, not after a worker complains.

The Fair Labor Standards Act generally applies to nonprofit employees through enterprise or individual coverage, and nonprofits must comply with federal overtime rules as well as state wage laws. The department also issued Opinion Letter FLSA2026-6 on May 28, 2026, on a quarterly bonus program that had to be included in overtime calculations because it was not discretionary.