Krispy Kreme agrees to pay $1.2m to settle pay violations

The Krispy Kreme logo appears above its trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, May 9, 2016. Krispy Kreme will pay nearly $1.2 million in back wages and damages to workers to resolve overtime pay violations under a settlement announced Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, by the U.S. Department of Labor. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Krispy Kreme will pay nearly $1.2 million in back wages and damages to workers to resolve overtime pay violations under a settlement announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The payments will go to 516 workers in multiple locations for what the labor department described as “widespread and systematic” violations.

According to a filing in U.S. District Court, Krispy Kreme hasn’t calculated overtime correctly for its assistant district managers for the last three years. The Department of Labor says Krispy Kreme was supposed to include workers’ bonuses when determining their pay rate but stopped doing that around November 2019.

In a statement, Krispy Kreme said it didn’t agree with the labor department’s findings but agreed to settle the case with no admission of wrongdoing.

The labor department’s Wage and Hour Division opened an investigation at a Krispy Kreme in Louisville, Kentucky, but said it soon expanded its probe to all Krispy Kreme’s 242 U.S. locations.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Krispy Kreme has around 9,200 employees in the U.S.