U.S.Department of Labor issued the following announcement on March 13.
After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD), Lake Meadow Naturals LLC – an agricultural employer based in Ocoee, Florida – has paid $18,844 in back wages to 14 employees for violating overtime, recordkeeping, and child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
WHD investigators found Lake Meadow Naturals LLC was ineligible for an agricultural exemption it claimed from overtime requirements, and that it consequently failed to pay employees time-and-one-half for hours they worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Investigators determined that the employees performed inventory and repackaged items received from other farms, and regularly worked in the facility's store handling and selling products from other farms. The agricultural exemption from the FLSA's overtime requirements applies to employees involved in processing and/or packaging products grown only by that employer. Once employees packed goods brought in from other suppliers, the exemption did not apply, and they were due overtime.
WHD determined that the employer misapplied another overtime exemption for several of its employees when it considered them to be exempt from the FLSA's overtime requirements as salaried managers. These employees were found to be due overtime when their job duties failed to meet the criteria for the FLSA's "white collar" exemptions. Lake Meadow Naturals also violated FLSA recordkeeping requirements when the employer failed to keep accurate time and payroll records as required by law.
Original source can be found here.