Creative Foundations Inc. has paid $327,848 in back wages to 223 employees after the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the Delaware-based employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and child labor requirements. The department assessed $671 in civil money penalties for the employer’s child labor violations. Investigators determined the employer violated the FLSA’s overtime requirements when it paid some employees flat salaries regardless of the number of hours they worked each week. By doing so, the employer failed to pay overtime to those employees when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
Investigators found Creative Foundations further violated overtime requirements when they failed to pay healthcare employees for time they spent traveling between clients’ locations during the workday. The employer also failed to include employee bonuses in their calculation when determining workers’ overtime rates. This exclusion resulted in Creative Foundations paying overtime at rates lower than those required by law. Additionally, the employer failed to total hours employees worked at different rates of pay within the workweek when determining when overtime was due.
In addition to the wage violations, investigators determined the employer violated the FLSA’s child labor requirements by employing a minor under age 16 during school hours, for more than 3 hours on a school day, and for more than 18 hours during a school week.
