Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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BOSTON -- A Morrisville, Vt., employer and his two companies have agreed to pay 30 employees a total of $55,000 in overtime back wages to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Named in the suit, filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, were Todd Shonio and his companies: Shonio and Shonio Enterprises Inc., and Stowe Home Care Maintenance Inc., the former being a snow clearing business and the latter being a landscape and property maintenance service. Both are based in Morrisville.

The suit charged the defendants with violations of the overtime pay provisions of the FLSA between Dec. 28, 2003 and Dec. 31, 2005. The FLSA requires that covered employees be paid at least the applicable minimum wage and one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 per week. The law also requires that accurate records of employees’ wages, hours and other conditions of employment be maintained.

A consent judgment prohibits the defendants from future violations of the overtime requirements of the FLSA, and orders them to pay employees $55,000 in back wages on or before Sept. 30, 2006.

The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division office in Burlington, Vt., investigated this case. The lawsuit was filed by the department’s regional office of the Solicitor of Labor in Boston.

For more information about the requirements of the FLSA, call the Department of Labor’s toll-free help line at (866) 4US-WAGE (487-9243), contact the Wage and Hour office in Burlington at (802) 951-6283 or the Wage and Hour Office in Manchester, N.H. at (603) 666-7716. Information is also available on the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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