Pennsylvania: Shale gas industry "ripe for noncompliance" with wage law

The article is from the local newspaper, but Bloomberg picked it up:

Shale gas industry "ripe for noncompliance" with wage law {The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.}

Shale gas industry "ripe for noncompliance" with wage law

BRENDAN GIBBONS, STAFF WRITER Published: December 11, 2014
bgibbons@timesshamrock.com
@bgibbonsTT

The “fissured landscape” of the shale gas industry is drawing regulators’ eyes as they seek to enforce labor laws, U.S. Department of Labor officials said.

On Tuesday, the department announced an agreement with roughly 145 oil and gas employers to pay a combined $4.5 million in back wages to 5,300 workers tapping into the Marcellus Shale. The money will go to workers, not the U.S. Treasury.

The industry’s structure, with relatively few significant entities at the top and hundreds or thousands of vendors beneath them, drew regulators’ focus, Wilkes-Barre district director Alfonso Gristina said.

“The further we go down in that business structure, for a variety of reasons, we find more violations,” he said.