Fifteen employees at a motel in the tourist corridor of Kissimmee were not being paid overtime and now their staffing company owes them nearly $25,000  in back wages. An initiative by the Department of Labor is helping combat this problem.

  • Perfect Service Excellent Benefits Services to pay 15 workers total of $24,884
  • Federal investigators say staffing agency classified workers as contractors
  • Workers are owed unpaid overtime and damages

Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division found that Perfect Service Excellent Benefits Services, a staffing agency that provides workers to the Knights Inn Maingate on U.S. 192 in Kissimmee, misclassified some housekeepers, laundry, maintenance and front-desk workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

“It is very much widespread in the Orlando Kissimmee area, like I said, because we have so many hotels to begin with and so much demand for these kinds of services,” said Wildalí De Jesús, assistant district director with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Some housekeepers who worked up to 48 hours per week earned a set amount for each room they cleaned, regardless of how many hours they worked, resulting in overtime violations when they worked more than 40 hours a week, investigators said. Hourly employees were paid straight time for their overtime hours, and the employer also failed to maintain required time and payroll records, they said.

Perfect Service Excellent Benefits Services Inc. was ordered to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act, pay $12,442 in unpaid overtime wages to 15 employees and will pay the workers an equal, additional amount in liquidated damages, all totaling $24,884. The employer was also assessed $7,012 in civil money penalties for willful and repeat violations, the U.S. Labor Department said. It found similar violations of the company in prior investigations.

“Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is all too common in the hotel industry. It denies employees their rights to critical benefits and protections, such as overtime compensation, family and medical leave, unemployment insurance and safe workplaces protections,” said Daniel White, district director for the Wage and Hour Division in Jacksonville.

“When we are all enjoying world class attractions and having fun, sometimes you don’t know that the person that is cleaning your room back at the hotel or serving your breakfast at the hotel may not be getting paid in accordance to the law,” stated De Jesús.

We visited and called both the staffing company Perfect Service Excellent Benefits Services and Knights Inn Motel but they did not get back to us for interviews.