Krispy Kreme has agreed to pay $1,187,757 in back pay and damages to 516 of its roughly 9,200 workers nationwide as part of a legal settlement, the Department of Labor announced Thursday.
The Labor Department’s investigation started at a location in Louisville, Kentucky. Officials deemed the alleged violations of overtime pay rules systemic and proceeded to look at all 242 of Krispy Kreme’s stores nationwide.
“Investigators determined Krispy Kreme failed to include monthly bonuses in some employees’ regular rates of pay. By doing so, the employer paid overtime at lower rates than the Fair Labor Standards Act requires,” Labor wrote in its announcement.
Specifically, the doughnut shop chain is accused of having stopped calculating bonuses into overtime pay for assistant district managers after November 2019, according to The Associated Press.
Half of the payment sum will be in back pay, the other half in damages, according to USA Today.
“We do not agree with the department’s findings and the basis for them. However, we have agreed to settle this matter with no admission of wrongdoing in the best interests of our business and our team members,” Krispy Kreme, headquartered in North Carolina, said in a statement to USA Today.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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