Dunkin Donuts Owner To Pay $200k In Employees' Back Wages

The owner of the Dunkin Donuts location on Main Street in Belmar will pay nearly $200,000 in back wages owed to employees after a federal investigation found that the company failed to pay overtime for some managers, according to U.S. Labor Department release.

QSR Manangement, of Edison, owns 55 Dunkin Donut locations throughout New Jersey and Staten Island, N.Y., and has agreed to pay $197,787 in back wages owed to 64 employees after an investigation by the U.S.  Labor Department found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a department release.

The company claimed that managers from all 55 locations collected a salary and therefore they were exempt from overtime pay. But investigators found that the company reduced managers’ pay when they worked less than 60 hours a week, according to the release.

The Fair Labor Standards Act allows an exemption from overtime pay only if managers receive a guaranteed weekly salary of at least $455. The company failed to pay its managers a guaranteed weekly salary in all work weeks, and therefore store managers were entitled to overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 hours, the release says.

“These managers worked long hours and are entitled to the protection the FLSA affords them,” said Patrick Reilly, director of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, Southern New Jersey Office. “An employer’s failure to pay overtime when required gives them an unfair competitive advantage, violates the rights of the employee, and will not be tolerated.”

Investigators also found that at two locations management took tips from customer service workers to cover register shortages, resulting in minimum wage violations of $237 for eight employees. Neither the location nor the employees were named in the release.

QSR has changed its employee handbook to reflect the overtime rules and will cease allowing management to take tips from employees, the release says.

It was not immediately known if the managers at the Belmar location were among those managers to receive back pay.

QSR owns several locations in Monmouth and Ocean counties, including:

• 1401 Main St, Asbury Park, NJ 07712
• 20 Main St, Asbury Park, NJ
• 1007 Main St Belmar NJ
• 1 Brighton Ave, Neptune City, NJ
• 3701 State Route 33, Neptune, NJ
• 1245 Route 166, Toms River, NJ
• 620 Mantoloking RD Brick NJ
• 14 Beaverson Blvd Brick NJ
• 1902 37 W, Toms River, NJ 08753