Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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SAN FRANCISCO -- People's Choice, Inc., with offices at 1527 W. Bonanza Road, has agreed to pay $74,166 in back wages to 27 employees after a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigation found that employees were not paid for all hours worked, including overtime, as required by federal law.

"The Department of Labor is committed to strong enforcement of the law to ensure that all workers, particularly those in low-wage jobs, are paid for all hours worked, and for overtime when they earn it" said George Friday, regional administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. "We are pleased that the department was able to recover more than $74,000 for these workers."

The Wage and Hour Division's investigation found that People's Choice, Inc. paid employees a fixed hourly wage despite the typical 60-hour workweek. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that employees be paid one-and-one-half times their regular rate of pay for work hours in excess of 40 per week. In addition, the firm did not pay employees for time spent returning company vehicles from the last job site to the business at the end of the day.

The affected employees are recent immigrants and do yard maintenance work such as mowing lawns and pruning trees and shrubs. The back wages compensated them for work performed during the two-year period ending in October 2003. The company has agreed to revise its pay and record-keeping procedures and to comply with federal wage and hour laws in the future.

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recovered more than $212 million in back wages in fiscal year (FY) 2003 -- a 21 percent increase over the record setting amount in FY 2002. Average days to resolve a complaint decreased in FY 2003 from 129 days to 108 days. WHD assessed employers nearly $10 million in civil money penalties in FY 2003.

For more information about the FLSA, call the Las Vegas Wage and Hour office at (702) 388-6001 or the Department of Labor's toll-free help line at 1-866-4US WAGE (1-866-487-9243). Information is also available on the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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