Maplewood-based 3M overpaid thousands of employees and then violated state law by making deductions from their pay without first obtaining a voluntary written authorization, according to the Minnesota attorney general’s office.

Now the company will have to pay back nearly 1,700 current and former employees more than $961,000 in back wages under a settlement reached last month and filed Thursday in Ramsey County District Court.

The settlement document says the attorney general’s office became aware of potential unlawful deductions after receiving complaints from 3M employees. A civil investigation was opened and company records were turned over.

Records showed 3M made 5,978 deductions from the pay of 4,204 employees between May 2020 and August 2023, according to the settlement document. More than half of the deductions were less than $1 and are not part of the settlement.

The deductions were made to correct overpayments, which resulted from COVID-19 pandemic-related absences, incorrect calculations of salary base pay and incorrect overtime calculations, the settlement says.

“It was wrong for 3M to deduct money from workers’ paychecks without their knowledge and agreement,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a Thursday statement. “I am pleased that 3M was willing to cooperate with my office by returning money to workers and changing its deduction policies going forward.”

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