Posted at 12:27 p.m., Thursday, January 19, 2006
BUSINESS BRIEFS
Borders to offer Starbucks coffee
Advertiser Staff
Five Borders Books & Music stores in Hawai'i plan to convert their in-house cafés to Starbucks stores by September.The Michigan-based book retailer made the arrangement with Coffee Partners Hawaii, the local licensee operating Starbucks in Hawai'i.
Conversions will occur at the Lihu'e, Kahului, Hilo and Honolulu (Ward Centre) Borders. The Borders at Waikele will close its café and create interior access to an existing Starbucks next door. A Pearlridge Borders opened on Oct. 14 with a Starbucks.
Borders stores on the Mainland do not feature Starbucks cafés, though United Kingdom stores do.
Honolulu maritime company agrees to pay $60,000 in overtime back wages
The owner of a Honolulu-based maritime company, Smith Tankermen Services, has agreed to pay $60,000 in overtime back wages to six employees who had been improperly classified as exempt from overtime pay, the U.S. Department of Labor said today.
An investigation by the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division determined that the employees, who load petroleum products to and from barges and onto ships at local piers throughout Hawai'i, did not qualify for the "seaman" exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and, therefore, were entitled to overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek. The FLSA requires employers to pay non-exempt employees time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 per week.
In a consent judgment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai'i, the company's owner, Gordon L.K. Smith, agreed to pay the workers the overtime wages due for work performed between October 2001 and July 2004. Smith also agreed to operate all his corporations in compliance with overtime and record-keeping provisions of the FLSA in the future, according to the Labor Department.
