Daily Salary Violated Minimum Wage and Overtime Laws

A collection of residential care facilities have been ordered to pay a significant penalty by the U.S. Department of Labor, after the DOL found that the owners of the facilities had violated both minimum wage and overtime laws under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  An investigation found that owners were paying certain employees flat rates per day, regardless of the number of hours that the employees worked.  By doing this, the company tried to eschew overtime laws that require time-and-a-half overtime wages to employees who worked over forty hours in a workweek.  In addition, the company also did not pay employees for certain hours that they worked, such as hours for required training.  The laundry list of violations continued with a failure to display the FLSA poster and a failure to keep accurate records for weekly hours worked and paid.  The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits all of these violations.  Non-exempt employees must be paid time-and-a-half overtime wages when they work over forty hours in a workweek, even when the employees are paid a “flat rate.”  An employer in Ohio who violates overtime laws may be required to pay all unpaid wages, an equal amount of liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees and costs.