A group of New York City home health aides is suing the state Department of Labor in an attempt to force the agency to resume an investigation of their allegations that they were not fully compensated for their time during 24-hour shifts.
The state was already investigating wage theft claims made by approximately 120 home health aides last year when the workers got a decision in their favor in a separate arbitration between the workers’ unions, 1199 SEIU and others, and dozens of private home care agencies.
Finding workers had not been paid money due for rest and meal times that they had instead spent working, the arbitrator determined the employers must pay $30 million into “special wage fund” covering unionized home health aides employed by 42 different agencies, including some of the workers whose claims were also under review by the Department of Labor (DOL).
Some workers slammed the resulting settlement, claiming the award amounted to pennies on the dollar per worker. Aides had hoped that the state Department of Labor would continue its own investigation, which began in 2019. Instead, beginning this May, the agency sent out notices to workers who had submitted complaints to its wage theft division, informing them it was abandoning its probe.
Some of the letters referenced mandatory arbitration clauses in the union’s collective bargaining agreements.
“We decline to investigate the allegations presented any further,” one letter read. “We understand other means are...
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