Dive Brief:

• As part of an ongoing enforcement effort against alleged Fair Labor Standards Act violations in the residential care and home health industry, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Nov. 16 that it recovered $1,207,162 in overtime back wages for workers at four home healthcare agencies in Texas and Louisiana.
• According to the DOL, investigators for its Wage and Hour Division found Texas companies Ace Primary Home Care owed a total of $841,244 to 400 employees after adjusting their rate of pay to make it appear overtime was paid; Fernandez Care Assistance owed a total of $122,944 to 47 employees for not paying them the additional overtime premium; and the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans in Texas (AAMA) owed a total of $82,497 to 23 workers whose pay records were adjusted to indicate no overtime was worked. A Louisiana company, Guardian Angels Care Service, allegedly misclassified workers as independent contractors, the DOL said. The WHD calculated 129 caregivers were owed a total of $160,477.
• “The majority of the home healthcare industry’s workers are women of color, and despite the critical work they do ... their hourly wages remain among the lowest in the nation,” Betty Campbell, Southwest regional wage and hour administrator, said in a media release. The DOL “is determined to make sure employers respect their rights as workers, including the right to be paid proper and full wages as dictated by federal law,” she added. Ace Primary Care,...

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