Home Health & Hospice Week

Carrot: Paying aides legal overtime gives you a competitive advantage, DOL says.

The spotlight continues to get hotter on the topic of agencies failing to pay their non-medical home care workers the legally required amount.

For example: A federal judge found Independent Home Care of Michigan and its owners, Mary Clark and Kathryn Flick, liable to pay 23 home health workers a total of $93,331 — $46,665 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages — after the company failed to pay companion workers overtime wages, the Department of Labor says in a release. The findings came after a two-day bench trial.

Since 2015, labor laws have required agencies to pay overtime to companion services workers when they work in excess of 40 hours in a work week, the DOL reminds in the release. The Fenton-based company also failed to keep accurate records of hours worked and rates of pay for work performed.

“The U.S. Department of Labor … is often the only advocate for workers denied their rightful wages and we are committed to being their voice,” Regional Solicitor of Labor Christine Heri says in the release.

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Other wage-related cases this year include:

In Pennsylvania: Trafford-based From the Heart Com­panion Service paid $191,591.71 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to settle charges that it neglected to pay overtime as required to employees at four Pittsburgh-area locations for hours worked over 40 hours in a work week, the DOL says in a release. “The outcome of our investigations

at From the Heart Companion Service LLC should remind other employers to review their pay practices to avoid costly penalties,” DOL Wage and Hour Division District Director John DuMont says in the release. “Healthcare employers whose pay practices comply with the law have a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining workers,” DuMont adds.

In New York: An arbitrator ruled 42 home care staffing agencies had to pay $30 million into a “special wage fund” to compensate workers who were underpaid for their companionship services, the union 1199SEIU reports in a release. State law allows such workers to get paid for 13 hours of a 24-hour shift, but only if they get mandated, uninterrupted sleep and meal breaks. Workers say the job makes such breaks impossible. Many workers were disappointed with the award, claiming they deserve much more in back wages for thousands of hours worked, according to press reports.

HHAs Can’t Escape OT Obligations With Independent Contractor Classifications

Overtime infractions can also be based on misclassifi­cations. In Pennsylvania, Upper Darby-based Successful Aging Care Net Inc. and owner Innocent Onwubiko were ordered to pay $4.5 million in back wages and liquidated damages after DOL investigators found the agency misclassified some workers as independent contractors, “which denied 503 home health aides their rightfully earned overtime wages,” the DOL says in a release.

Successful Aging paid straight time instead of time-and-a-half to the misclassified aides for hours over 40 in a work week, the DOL says. It also failed to pay overtime to other properly classified employees; failed to compensate workers for time spent traveling between clients’ locations; and did not maintain records of travel time.

Successful Aging must also pay $152,439 in civil money penalties the DOL assessed for “the willful nature of the violations,” according to the release.

The DOL “will use every tool available, including litigation, to prevent employers from depriving workers of their wages and from gaining an unfair competitive advantage over employers who abide by the law,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda says in the release.