According to an agreement announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Labor, Tulsa-based QuikTrip will pay back wages to 3,819 current and former c-store employees STLToday.com reported.

 

The settlement, totaling $747,729, will compensate the workers for uncompensated overtime in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois and Missouri, where the company operates its 500 service stations and convenience stores.

 

“We were wrong internally, but we worked with the Labor Department to correct it as quickly as possible,” QuikTrip spokesperson Mike Thornbrugh told STLToday.com.

 

In a Monday morning statement, the Labor Department said QuikTrip’s failure to provide the employees with overtime violated a stipulation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The stipulation requires employers to provide an additional overtime “premium” to employees earning a performance-related bonus.

 

Thornbrugh said the “internal programming error” came to the company’s attention a year-and-a-half ago, and that the issue was resolved shortly after. Affected employees have already received the back pay they were owed, Thornbrugh added.

 

The problem was linked to an incentive program that rewards employees after QuikTrip representatives evaluate stores for customer service and  upkeep. The glitch resulted in over-payments to some employees and under-payments to others. QuikTrip did not require the over-paid employees to pay back the money, Thornbrugh noted.”It had nothing to do with them, it was our mistake.”