Build-A-Bear Workshop, an international retailer with more than 400 locations worldwide, allows customers to design and create their own teddy bears. The Wage and Hour Division found that many Build-A-Bear’s Midwestern retail locations violated government regulations prohibiting workers under 18 years old from performing hazardous activities and working in potentially dangerous environments.

In one instance, 16- and 17-year old employees routinely loaded and operated industrial trash compactors. Another violation involved underage employees operating and riding in a freight elevator.

Enrique Rodriguez, the Wage and Hour Division’s district director in St. Louis, told Wichita’s KAKE that “Every year, young employees are injured while performing prohibited work.” His office launched regional investigations as part of the child labor mall initiative, aimed at bringing shopping malls into better compliance with FLSA regulations.

“The department’s hazardous orders regulations exist to promote safety and prevent workplace injuries in the nation’s youth workforce,” he told KAKE.

Rodriguez also told KAKE that Build-A-Bear has fully cooperated with the Wage and Hour Division and has taken the proper measures to avoid future violations.

Earlier this year, the same child labor initiative uncovered multiple violations of the FLSA youth employment provisions by retail establishments Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. A random investigation of 19 stores, restaurants, and movie theaters at 3 different malls found 50 minors operating dangerous equipment such as trash compactors and paper balers.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Teddy bear company cited for FLSA child labor violations

Smith’s restaurant in Bolivar will pay more than $36,000 in fines and back wages stemming from its violations of the FLSA’s overtime, minimum wage, and child labor regulations. $34,625 of the money recovered by the Wage and Hour Division will compensate 54 employees for back wages.

Investigators found the restaurant had violated minimum wage laws by skimming money from the servers’ hourly pay to compensate bus staff. The restaurant also paid regular wages to ten hourly employees for time worked over 40 hours per workweek, which constitutes a violation of the FLSA standards for overtime pay.

The restaurant had to pay nearly $1,500 in penalties to the Labor Department for allowing employees under 18 years old to work more than three hours on school days and past 9 p.m. during the summer.  The FLSA prohibits workers under age 18 from working more than three hours on school days (18 hours per week) and eight hours on days with no school (40 hours per week). Minors may not work work later than 7 p.m. when school is in session or 9 p.m. during summer break.

The restaurant has cooperated fully with the Department of Labor, reports the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

“The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division is committed to protecting the rights of workers by ensuring that they receive the wages to which they are entitled,” James Koren, Kansas City district director of the Wage and Hour Division, told the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

“Also, the department’s child labor provisions serve to strike a balance among providing invaluable work experience to our nation’s youth, safety and educational responsibilities,” he said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Missouri restaurant pays back wages and penalties for FLSA violations

Hourly wage workers from Tyson’s slaughterhouses in Holcomb and Emporia, Kansas, originally filed the case in May 1006. Together, the Kansas operations employ some 3,300 hourly workers. The workers allege that Tyson owes them millions of dollars in back pay for all the time they spend on the job.

The key issue in the case is whether Tyson should have to compensate workers for all of the time they spend putting on and removing protective gear, cleaning equipment, waiting for production lines to start, walking to and from work, break, and changing quarters, and working on unpaid meal breaks.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the workers are seeking compensation for overtime. They are also seeking compensation for unpaid “straight time” at work under the Kansas Wage Payment Act.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under the Fair Labor Standards Act, production workers must be compensated for doing anything that is “integral and indispensable” to the “principal activity” of the job they perform.

The ruling influenced Lungstrom’s decision last year to reject a motion by Tyson for summary judgment. In doing so, Lungstrum “ruled that whether standard protective clothing was ‘integral and indispensable’ to Tyson employees’ work was a factual question for a jury to decide,” according to a report in the Kansas City Star.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Class action lawsuit against Tyson Foods will proceed