Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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SEATTLE -- Employees at an Albion, N.Y., call center will receive $404,981 in back wages following an investigation by the Albany, N.Y., and Seattle, Wash., district offices of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

According to Donna Hart, district director for the Seattle Wage and Hour office, investigators found that Washington Mutual failed to include all time worked when calculating regular and overtime pay for 1,350 workers and did not keep accurate records of time worked. The company is headquartered in Seattle and provides communications and financial services nationwide.

A complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and a consent judgment was filed today (March 23, 2006).

“Workers deserve to be paid for all the hours they work and to receive overtime pay when appropriate,” said George Friday, regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco. “The workers in this case were not compensated for their full work day, and I am very pleased that we were able to recover over $400,000 in back wages for them.”

Wage Hour's district offices determined that Washington Mutual failed to compensate telephone bankers in Albion for pre-shift work time. When the combined pre-shift time and other work hours exceeded 40 hours in a workweek, the employees also qualified for additional overtime pay.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that employees be paid at least the applicable minimum wage and time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 per week. It also requires employers to keep accurate records of employees’ wages, hours and other conditions of employment.

The company has agreed to comply with the recordkeeping and overtime provisions of the FLSA in the future. Employees at the Albion call center will receive the back pay for work performed between April 21, 2003, and April 30, 2005.

Information about the FLSA is available at 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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