Transportation — Dispatchers Denied Overtime

Martin Resource Management Corporation and Martin Transport, Inc. | Dispatchers | Kilgore, Texas

Buenker Law filed a federal lawsuit against Martin Resource Management Corporation and Martin Transport, Inc. on behalf of dispatchers who were paid a salary with no overtime compensation. The plaintiff worked as a dispatcher for the companies’ hydrocarbon transport operations — coordinating the movement of petroleum products across the region — for more than three years. Despite regularly working more than 40 hours per week, he was classified as exempt from overtime and paid no additional compensation for his overtime hours.

Dispatchers do not qualify for the FLSA’s administrative or executive exemptions. Those exemptions require that an employee’s primary duty involve the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance — a standard that dispatching work, which involves executing established protocols and communicating between parties, does not typically meet. Paying dispatchers a salary without overtime is a recurring FLSA issue in the oil and gas logistics industry, where long hours are the norm and the salary structure is often used to avoid paying for them.

The lawsuit was filed as a collective action on behalf of all dispatchers employed by the Martin companies in Texas who were paid a salary without overtime during the three-year period prior to filing. The case is pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. A trial date has been set.