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LinkedIn was fined $6 million for its neglect of overtime pay, and is required to compensate 359 workers $3.3 million in lost wages and damages. LinkedIn, the premiere online resource for professional job search, was in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and its co-founder and Chairman, Reid Hoffman, is one of the most vocal and generous donors to the Democratic Party which, appropriately, makes the minimum wage and fair labor practices a integral part of its platform.
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To its credit, LinkedIn was said by the Labor Department to have shown “a great deal of integrity” during the investigation. Hoffman was said to have donated $43, 000 to the Democratic party during the 2012 campaign, $30, 800 to the Democratic National Committee and $5, 000 to President Obama.
LinkedIn said the cause of the violations was due to inefficiency and not an intent to deprive workers of overtime wages. PCWorld reported that management said in an emailed statement that the error was a “function of not having the right tools in place for a small subset of our sales force to track hours properly.” The company said it had noticed the problem and had been working on rectifying it prior to the Labor Department’s investigation.
While many recommend looking for a job using LinkedIn’s service, it pays to keep a careful eye on the timesheet if one plans to actually work at LinkedIn. In any case, it is more than likely that LinkedIn has learned its lesson.
