Ryan Randazzo

The Republic | azcentral.com

Hotel employees will be paid $151,000 in back wages.

A staffing agency wasn't paying overtime if workers split hours among hotels.

Allstars Staffing provides workers to resorts and hotels.

A staffing agency that placed workers at the Tempe Mission Palms, Sheraton and Fairmont Scottsdale Princess will pay more than $151,000 in back wages and penalties for improperly denying workers overtime, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Allstars Staffing would place servers, bussers, cooks, dishwashers and banquet staff at the hotels, but would pay them proper overtime wages of 1.5 times their regular hourly wages only if they worked an entire week at a single hotel and the property agreed to pay time and a half for the work.

The Labor Department said Thursday these were "willful" violations that also will cost Allstars a $22,000 civil penalty.

The workers will receive their back wages plus an equal amount of damages, according to the Department of Labor.

"Staffing agencies and their employer clients share responsibility to ensure that all employees working on their behalf are paid the wages they are entitled to by law,” said Eric Murray, director of the Wage and Hour Division in Phoenix, in a statement. “These violations are all too common in the hotel industry. Our agency will do everything in its power to end the willful misclassification of employees as independent contractors."

He said such actions allow businesses to cut costs.

"This cheats not just the workers and their families — it also the undercuts the competition,” he said.

The Department of Labor reports that employers often intentionally misclassify workers to reduce costs and avoid employment taxes. The department encourages workers to file complaints or call with questions at 866-487-9243.

In a similar case reported last week, a U.S. District Court judge ordered four Phoenix-area Federico's Mexican Food restaurants to pay $202,000 in overtime and back wages to workers. Instead of paying time and a half, the restaurants paid straight time for overtime and failed to pay for combined hours worked among multiple locations.