The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division cited a Tennessee healthcare organization for missing three payrolls in November 2020. The missed payrolls led to the discovery of minimum wage and overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Investigators also found that the Tennessee healthcare organization illegally deducted break time from employee’s hours of work, despite federal law requiring that employers pay for short break periods. Short break periods, which usually last between 5 to 20 minutes, as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor are compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s investigation identified other concerns in the Tennessee healthcare organization’s pay practices, which included:
- Paying employees straight time for all the hours they worked, and failing to pay overtime when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
- Failing to include earned bonuses, such as incentive pay, in the calculation of overtime pay.
- Misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor, thus paying the worker straight time and failing to pay overtime even when the employee worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
The division recovered $163,785 in back wages for 72 workers.
The Wage and Hour Division Acting District Director in Tennessee, Pamela Sullivan, stated, “Healthcare workers provided essential services at great risk and personal sacrifice as the pandemic raged. They deserve to be paid all of their legally earned wages on their regularly scheduled payday, as the Fair Labor Standards Act requires.”
For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Calls can be made to the Wage and Division confidentially with questions, regardless of a person’s immigration status, and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages.
Issue:
The Fair Labor Standards Act must be adhered to at all times within your facility. It is imperative that all employees who are responsible for determining rates of pay, deciding overtime pay eligibility, and performing recordkeeping of wages are well trained in the Fair Labor Standards Act. When employing minors within your facility, it is critical that all federal laws are adhered to for the working minor. Violations of the Act can result in fines and other penalties.
Discussion Points:
- Review your policies and procedures on fair wages, overtime pay eligibility, and recordkeeping. Update as needed.
- Train all staff who have responsibility for ensuring fair wages, overtime pay eligibility, and recordkeeping so that they are knowledgeable about your policy and procedures to ensure they comply with the requirements. Train all staff who have responsibility for supervising and scheduling workers about the requirements that must be met when you employ minors in your setting. Document that these trainings occurred, and file each signed document in the employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit to ensure that fair wages, overtime pay eligibility, and the recordkeeping of hours worked are accurate and being reported correctly. Also, when employing minors, ensure that all employment requirements and limitations on hours worked are followed.
