Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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MINNEAPOLIS --

A dozen low wage hotel workers at the Bloomington Fairfield Inn in Minneapolis and the Mendota Heights Fairfield Inn in St. Paul, Minn., will receive a total of $24,452 in unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages as directed by a consent judgment.

The consent judgment was agreed to in federal district court in Minnesota between the U.S. Department of Labor, the hotels and Tharaldson Property Management Inc., the hotels’ management company which operates hotels nationwide. They were also fined $5,280 for willful overtime pay violations.

An investigation by the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division found violations of the overtime pay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) during the period of July 2003 and February 2006. The department found that the businesses did not pay time and one-half pay for hours worked over 40 hours in a single workweek and did not keep proper records of the hours worked.

“The Department of Labor is committed to ensuring that workers are paid in accordance with the law and for all hours worked,” said Jose Medina, district director of the Wage and Hour Division’s office in Minneapolis.

The FLSA requires payment of the federal minimum wage and payment of overtime at time and one-half a covered employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week, unless otherwise exempt. The FLSA also contains record keeping requirements and youth employment standards.

The Wage and Hour Division concluded 31,987 compliance actions in fiscal year 2006 and recovered more than $171 million in back wages for more than 246,000 employees. Back-wage collections last year represent a 30 percent increase over back wages collected in fiscal 2001. The number of workers receiving back wages has increased by 14 percent since year 2001.

The Wage and Hour Division’s Web site has more details about the Fair Labor Standards Act at www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/faq.htm. For more information, call the Department of Labor’s toll-free help line at 1 (866) 4US-WAGE (487-9243).

Information is also available on the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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U.S. Department of Labor releases are accessible on the Internet at www.dol.gov. The information in this news release will be made available in alternate format (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office upon request. Please specify which news release when placing your request at (202) 693-7828 or TTY (202) 693-7755. The Labor Department is committed to providing America’s employers and employees with easy access to understandable information on how to comply with its laws and regulations. For more information, please visit www.dol.gov/compliance.