Holiday Wage and Hour Violations

For retailers around the country, the holiday shopping season is the most important time of the year. For large corporations and small businesses alike, there is enormous pressure to maximize profit during this period. In many cases, the influx of business during these months means that retailers need to increase staffing. This means increased hours for existing employees, as well as potential hiring of seasonal and part-time workers.

The holiday and accompanying need for retail labor brings with it increased potential for wage and hour violations. In most cases, these violations are honest mistakes; employers may not be fully aware of their obligations when it comes to overtime wages or seasonal hires. In some cases, however, managers may cave to pressures to increase profit in the critical holiday season by cutting corners or denying workers all that they are owed. In either case, employees are more vulnerable to wage violations during the holidays.

According to the Department of Labor, some of the most common holiday season labor violations include:

• Failing to pay salespeople and cashiers for the time spent prepping or closing out a register
• Requiring stock room and warehouse employees to work through breaks without compensation
• Not providing overtime pay to employees working over 40 hours in a week

While most of these violations have a small effect if they occur once or twice, the total earnings lost over the course of a year can add up. The DOL estimates that in the retail industry alone workers were owed $12.6 million in back wages, or about $900 per worker in the retail industry.  With the rush of the holiday season just behind us, employers and employees alike have the opportunity to reflect on whether the practices of their company meet the requirements of the law.

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recently released a guide to educate retail workers on their rights around the holiday season. The guide can be found here, and contains useful information for any employee seeking to understand more about their wage and hour rights.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user David Porter under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.