Managers at Checkers restaurants in Alabama clocked staff out mid-shift and altered their timecards so they could pay them less, a federal agency claims

• Managers at two Checkers restaurants in Alabama altered employees' timecards to reduce their recorded hours, the DOL claims.
• The restaurants also clocked staff out while they worked and didn't pay overtime, the DOL claims.

A Checkers franchisee in Montgomery, Alabama let managers at two restaurants clock staff out while they were still working and altered their timecards, meaning that they were paid less than they should have been, the Department of Labor claimds.

The DOL said in a press release that the restaurants also deducted break time from workers' schedules regardless of whether they actually took a break, deleted portions of their shifts from pay records, and didn't pay staff overtime where necessary. This led to violations of federal minimum wage and overtime laws under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the DOL said.

The restaurants were operated by Checkerboard Montgomery LLC and Checkerboard Montgomery 2 LLC.

The DOL said it had recovered $26,927 in back wages and liquidated damages for 36 employees.

"Wilful and illegal actions such as these cannot be ignored as they deprive workers of their rights and make it more difficult for employers who follow the law to be successful," Kenneth Stripling, district director for the DOL's Wage and Hour Division in Birmingham, Alabama, said in the press release.

It wasn't the first time the DOL had found wage violations at the franchisees' restaurants. The department said that the owners of the franchisees owed $3,636 in civil money penalties for the "repeated nature" of the violations, referring to an investigation in 2020.

The DOL also assessed Checkerboard Montgomery LLC and Checkerboard Montgomery 2 LLC $5,228 in civil money penalties for violating child-labor laws by allowing 15-year-old employees to work more hours than permitted.

Checkers and Rally's merged in 1999, with many geographies having just one of the two drive-thru burger chains in operation.

According to its website, Checkerboard Foods, which is owned by the same people as Checkerboard Montgomery LLC, owns 10 Checkers and Rally's restaurants in Alabama and Florida.

Neither Checkers nor the franchisees immediately replied to requests for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.