ALBANY — Home health care aides filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Labor last week that seeks to have the agency re-open investigations into workers' claims of systemic overtime wage theft that were allegedly abandoned because of union agreements.
Home care workers, traditionally low-paid, have been urging state lawmakers for higher wages and more protections in their industry, which provides often round-the-clock care for elderly and disabled New Yorkers.
The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of numerous workers from New York City and alleges that the home care agencies that employ them “systematically steal their wages by paying them for only 13 of the 24 hours of each shift, even when the aides do not receive at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep and three hours for meal breaks.”
As a result of the extra labor, home aides often make less than minimum wage and receive little overtime pay, leading hundreds to appeal to the Department of Labor to recover those wages. According to the lawsuit and related court documents, filed in state Supreme Court in Albany, the department conducted investigations into claims of wage theft and found “overwhelming” corroborating evidence that employers were willfully depriving employees of fair labor conditions and compensation.
But the agency, which began investigating several similar complaints in 2019, closed its investigations in April, citing a new agency policy that they would no longer investigate claims...
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