‘Regulatory intrusion’

KB Home and PulteGroup Inc. — two home builders with a large presence in Southern Nevada — were among a half-dozen companies last week targeted by the U.S. Department of Labor for their pay practices.

Letters sent to the companies, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, “said the department was opening a probe under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs matters such as overtime pay and limits on using teen workers.”

In one letter, the department demands the home builder provide the names of all contractors used and the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay rates and hours worked for all employees over the past two years.

Ironically, the revelation of this move came the day before President Barack Obama delivered a much-anticipated — yet rather familiar sounding — speech to Congress on job creation.

Nobody condones companies breaking the law when it comes to paying their workers. But at this point, there’s no indication that this is anything more than a fishing expedition that will cost these already struggling builders big bucks to comply with. None of the companies was informed of any specific criminal complaint or allegation.

The Labor Department request is “the continuation of a pattern of regulatory intrusion by this presidential administration,” Jerry Howard, chief executive officer of the National Association of Homebuilders, told the Journal. To top it off, it “couldn’t come at a worse time,” he said.

It’s worth noting that many of these builders often hire nonunion labor, as do subcontractors. A primary goal of the construction trade unions has been to make contractors liable for wage and pay violations by subcontractors — which is already the law in Nevada, but not in many other places.

But, then, the Obama administration doesn’t have a reputation for bending over backward to aid Big Labor, does it?