Fracking Company Keane Frac GP LLC Hit with Overtime Wage Lawsuit

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Hydraulic fracturing company Keane Frac GP LLC, Keane Frac, LP and Keane Group Holdings, LLC are facing a class action claiming the entities violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) with their wrongful overtime pay and employee classification practices. The defendants, the complaint outlines, constitute an oilfield service company that, in addition to paying workers an hourly wage, compensates employees with monthly job bonuses based, in part, on revenue the defendants derive from a particular oil well. These bonuses constitute a significant chunk of employees’ earnings. In many cases, the bonus payments equal or exceed what the workers were paid monthly.

According to the suit, the defendants misclassified the plaintiff as an employee exempt from overtime pay under the FLSA. The plaintiff—a supervisor who says a typical week’s demands called for him to work more than 80 hours—claims the defendants “did not include these bonus payments in the regular rate of pay for purposes of determining overtime,” resulting in the workers being paid below the FLSA-required time-and-a-half hourly rate.

The proposed class includes all current and former employees who were paid on an hourly basis with paid bonuses who worked for the defendants within the last three years. Additionally, a subclass covers current and former exempt workers categorized as Supervisor I employees who worked for the defendants at any time within the last three years.