$3.8 Million Disney Fine Underscores Importance of Accurate Timekeeping
Walt Disney Co. agreed to pay $3.8 million to over 16,000 employees after the Department of Labor found that its Florida-based divisions violated Fair Labor Standards Act rules by failing to pay for pre- and post-shift work and allowing wages to fall below minimum due to uniform deductions, highlighting the critical need for businesses to accurately track and compensate all employee work time, even minutes, with tools like WorkforceHub to ensure compliance.
When businesses run afoul of labor regulations, the fines can be sizeable.
Recently, Walt Disney Co. reached an agreement with the Department of Labor to pay out $3.8 million to 16,339 employees. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division concluded that Florida-based Disney Vacation Club Management Corp. and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S. Inc. failed to adhere to the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime, minimum wage, and record keeping provisions.
Do you employ hourly associates? Are you in compliance with all DOL provisions? DOL officials say that the illegal Disney practices are fairly widespread.
“These violations are not uncommon and are found in other industries, as well.”
— Daniel White, District Director for the Wage and Hour Division in Jacksonville, Florida
These are some of Disney’s specific violations:
- Failure to pay employees for required pre-shift responsibilities
- Failure to pay employees for required post-shift duties
- Allowing an employee’s hourly rate to temporarily fall below minimum wage because of a compulsory paycheck deduction for uniform expenses
Even a Couple Minutes Count
Keep in mind that the pre- or post-shift tasks for the Disney staff members could have only taken a couple minutes. If a staff member is supposed to change into a uniform (or costume in the Disney case) before their scheduled shift, they must be paid for this time. Do you require your employees to get their workstations ready, or perform other tasks before their designated shift start times?
“Employers must accurately track and pay for all the hours their employees work.”
— Daniel White
Are You Prepared for an Audit? Swipeclock Has Tools to Protect You
If you are using pen and paper time cards, it’s almost impossible to accurately track employee hours. TimeWorksPlus, TimeSimplicity, and TimeWorksTouch make up the WorkforceHub. WorkforceHub solves your compliance headaches.
- 1.Track employee time to the minute
- 2.Easy clock in/out for offsite employees
- 3.Automatically create audit-ready reports
Because our suite is fully integrated, you won’t have any troubles getting all of your time and attendance, scheduling, and payroll data synced together properly.
Call today for a demo and learn how WorkforceHub can help you avoid the costs of a labor audit.
Sources:
- 1.“Disney Reaches Agreement on Pay Practices with the US Department of Labor,” US Department of Labor, March 17, 2017, https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20170317, accessed May 9, 2017
- 2.Jennifer Calfas, “Disney Is Going to Pay $3.8 Million to Employees Who Were Charged for Their Costumes,” Fortune, March 17, 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/03/17/disney-labor-department-costumes-employees-charged/, accessed on May 9, 2017
Swipeclock offers WorkforceHub, the unified Human Resources portal that makes it easy to optimize the performance of your supervisors, employees, and company.
WorkforceHub includes TimeWorksPlus, TimeSimplicity, and TimeWorks Mobile. We’ve just added onboarding, benefits enrollment, performance reviews, and employee engagement! WorkforceHub is created for busy employers like you who need to streamline scheduling, automate time and attendance tracking, maintain regulatory compliance, and reduce labor costs.
We can get you up and running with WorkforceHub immediately. Contact us today to request a demo.
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