NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) — New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced Dec. 19 that True Entertainment LLC, a television production company, has agreed to pay $411,000 in restitution to hundreds of employees who allegedly failed to receive overtime pay despite routinely working more than 40 hours per week.
"The Writers Guild of America, East has been working closely with associate producers (APs) and other employees in the nonfiction/reality television sector, and many report working incredibly long hours without extra pay,” said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America, East.
According to Schneiderman’s office, production assistants and associate producers at the company routinely worked 50 hours per week, and sometimes as many as 72, yet never received legally mandated overtime pay. The company failed to keep accurate records for how many hours its employees worked, many of whom were paid weekly or daily salary hours.
“My office is committed to enforcing overtime laws, which guarantee fair compensation for putting in long hours, and discourage employers from assigning extremely long workweeks,” Schneiderman said. “Production workers in the entertainment industry routinely work more than 40 hours per week, and I will do everything in my power to defend their right to overtime pay.”