PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (WFLA) — Five Florida skating rinks, including four in the Tampa Bay Area, have been fined for keeping their teenage employees past their legally allowed hours, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
A release from the department said the Astro Skating Centers in Brandon, Tarpon Springs, Pinellas Park, Bradenton and Ormond Beach were penalized $26,103 for child labor violations.
“We began investigating one of the skating rinks,” said Nicolas Ratmiroff. “We saw that other locations also had additional issues that we needed to check on.”
Ratmiroff is the district director for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.
“We want to make sure that workers are protected,” Ratmiroff said. “That there’s fair and balanced enforcement of the laws.”
The department’s investigators said they learned the rinks kept 33 employees at the ages of 14 and 15 on shifts that violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“Specifically, the employer let the minors work past 7 p.m. while school was in session, past 9 p.m. between June 1 and Labor Day, more than three hours when school was in session, more than eight hours on non-school days and more than 18 hours during school weeks,” the release said.
According to the department, the rinks did not keep accurate records that kept track of their minor employees’ ages.
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