After an investigation by the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, Paradise Villa Retirement Home Inc. has paid $103,389 in back wages to 20 employees for violating minimum wage, overtime, and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Investigators determined that Paradise Villa Retirement Home Inc. inaccurately classified caregivers as independent contractors and paid them flat rates per day without regard to the number of hours they actually worked. This practice resulted in minimum wage violations when those flat rates failed to cover all the hours employees worked at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and overtime violations when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek. WHD also cited record-keeping violations when the employer failed to maintain records of the number of hours employees worked.

“The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep track of and pay employees for all the hours that they work,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Tony Pham. “The result of this investigation is an opportunity for other employers to review their pay practices to ensure they comply with the law. The Wage and Hour Division is determined to ensure that employers who fail to comply with the law do not gain an unfair competitive advantage over those who do.”

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