HONOLULU, Hawaii\u2014After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s Wage and Hour Division, AYD Services Inc.\u2014a Saipan-based provider of environmental and waste collection services\u2014has paid $30,077 in back wages and liquidated damages to 21 employees for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act\u2019s overtime requirements. The employer also paid $17,976 in civil penalties as a repeat and willful violator of the FLSA\u2019s wage standards.<\/p>\n
WHD investigators found the employer illegally entered into agreements with workers to waive their rights to earn overtime pay when they worked beyond 40 hours in a workweek. By doing so, the employer paid workers at their straight-time rates regardless of the number of hours they worked in a workweek, triggering overtime violations when those hours exceeded 40. Previous investigations of AYD Services Inc. revealed minimum wage and overtime violations.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers cannot enter into agreements with workers to waive their rights under federal law,\u201d said Wage and Hour district director Terence Trotter in Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0\u201cWe will continue to enforce the law so all employers abide by the same rules and compete on a level playing field.\u00a0We also encourage employers and employees to call us for assistance to improve their understanding of the labor standards and learn about our online educational\u00a0tools,\u00a0so violations like those found in this investigation can be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department offers numerous resources to ensure employers have the tools they need to understand their responsibilities and to comply with federal law, such as\u00a0online videos, confidential calls, or in-person visits to local WHD offices.<\/p>\n
For more information about the\u00a0FLSA\u00a0and other laws enforced by the Wage and Hour Division, contact the toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).\u00a0Employers who discover overtime or minimum wage violations may\u00a0self-report and resolve\u00a0those violations without litigation through the\u00a0PAID program.\u00a0Information is also available at\u00a0https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/agencies\/whd. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HONOLULU, Hawaii\u2014After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s Wage and Hour Division, AYD…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[485,8220],"class_list":["post-317409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ot","tag-usdol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}