Two Marietta, Georgia-based hotels paid $73,732 in back wages
and liquidated damages to 14 employees for violations of the minimum wage, overtime,
and recordkeeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), according
to an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Department
of Labor (DOL) investigators determined that Super 8 Hotel and Limited Suites allegedly
paid housekeepers a flat amount per each room cleaned, without regard to how
many hours they worked. According to the DOL, this practice resulted in minimum
wage violations when that flat amount yielded a pay of less than the federal
minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and in overtime violations when these
employees worked more than 40 hours per week with no additional overtime pay at
a rate of at least one and a half times their regular rate of pay.
DOL
investigators discovered additional overtime violations when the hotels allegedly
paid front desk staff at a straight time rate for all hours worked over 40
hours per week, and in one case, paid an employee only for 40 hours of work
each week, regardless of how many additional hours the employee
worked.
“Employers
must understand their obligations and responsibilities under the law. Simply
because a pay practice may appear to be common in a particular industry does
not, in any way, mean that it complies with the law,” said a DOL representative
in Atlanta.
