Dive Brief:
- Las Vegas-based Caesar's Entertainment Group will pay $175,128 in back wages and damages for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) at two Indiana casinos, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has announced.
- Investigators from DOL's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) determined that Horseshoe Casino and the Horseshoe Southern Indiana Casino made deductions from employees' wages to cover the cost of state-required casino gaming licenses for employees. When the casinos deducted the license fee from employee wages, employee pay was brought below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, creating a minimum-wage violation.
- Investigators determined that 485 employees of Horseshoe Casino were due $45,938 and 404 employees of Horseshoe Southern Indiana Casino were due $41,626. All employees will receive an equal, additional amount in liquidated damages.
Dive Insight:
The FLSA does not allow uniforms, or other items which are considered to be primarily for the benefit or convenience of the employer, to be included as wages, according to the DOL. Therefore an employer may not take credit for such items in meeting its obligations toward paying the minimum wage or overtime. In this instance, DOL noted that the individual casino licenses are non-transferable, valid only in the establishment for which they are issued, and had to be renewed annually.
If the employer requires the employee to bear certain costs, like those for uniforms, it may not reduce the employee's wage below the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, nor may that cost cut into overtime compensation required by the FLSA.
Some examples of items which would be considered to be for the benefit or convenience of the employer include: tools used in the employee's work, damages to the employer's property by the employee or any other individuals, financial losses due to clients/customers not paying bills, and theft of the employer's property by the employee or other individuals. Employees may not be required to pay for any of the cost of such items if, by so doing, their wages would be reduced below the required minimum wage or overtime compensation, according to DOL. The WHD lists several common problem-causing scenarios for employers to consider.