Rachel Lerner
Tue, 08/16/2022
On August 8, 2022, a judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania found that Elder Resource Management Inc. and Staff Source Inc. jointly and willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay home healthcare workers overtime pay.
Under the FLSA, an employer is required to pay employees at rate of 1.5 times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in one week. The Home Care Rule, implemented by the Department of Labor (DOL) in 2015, extended the right to overtime pay to previously exempt workers who provide home-based care. In this case, the judge found that Elder Resource Management Inc. and Staff Source Inc. were joint employers under the FLSA, as Staff Source received nearly all its revenue from Elder Resource Management and provided workers to no other companies. Therefore, according to the judge, the two entities operated a scheme in which the home-based care workers received checks from both Elder Resource Management and Staff Source. By splitting the paychecks and hours between the two organizations, the care workers were only paid the regular rate of pay when they should have earned overtime premiums for working more than 40 hours in a week.
In finding that Elder Resource Management and Staff Source purposefully implemented this system to dodge the FLSA overtime pay requirements, the judge ordered the payment of more than $1.2 million in overtime wages unlawfully withheld, in addition to liquidated damages.
MSE has successfully represented home healthcare aides and workers whose rights under the FLSA, and state laws, have been violated. For more information on these efforts, visit https://www.mselaborlaw.com/resources/private-employees/dc-homecare-workers.
Recently, the Department of Labor announced a new initiative to ramp up education, outreach, and enforcement to ensure the rights of caregivers are protected. To learn more about this initiative, visit https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20211123.
If you think your employer may be violating your rights, please contact us at info@mselaborlaw.com or 202-833-8855.
