As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, two health care facilities in Michigan - one of the hardest hit in the nation by coronavirus - withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages from its workers, the Department of Labor said in February.
A U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division investigation recovered $259,647 for 330 workers at two West Michigan health care facilities, federal officials said in a Feb. 18 release. Pay practices at Dobie Road-Ingham County Medical Care in Okemos and Martell & Company Home Care and Assistance LLC in Muskegon "denied the workers their full overtime wages and violated the Fair Labor Standards Act," the news release said.
Thursday, Feb. 18, also was National Caregivers Day.
"Today's commemoration of National Caregivers Day reminds us of the important work that the nation's healthcare workers do for us and for the community as a whole," DOL Wage and Hour Division District Director Mary O'Rourke, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said in the news release. "We owe these workers our gratitude and the Wage and Hour Division will hold accountable those employers who fail to pay employees their fair and rightfully earned wages."
Not paying overtime is a common FSLA violation, particularly in healthcare, and it can make it hard for healthcare facilities to find workers, O'Rourke said.
"These practices can affect an employer's ability to recruit and retain needed workers," she said. "When workers are not paid the wages they have earned, especially under the stresses caused by the pandemic, they may look for work elsewhere."
Michigan has reported more than 2.3 million COVID-19 cases and almost 34,000 deaths since the beginning of the still ongoing pandemic. Health care workers have been on the front line fighting the pandemic and trying to keep sufferers alive.
The pandemic has been too much for many health care workers. In December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 679,000 health care and social services workers quit. As they exit the health care field, the nation's elderly population is growing, creating demand for home healthcare services and other fields. The need for workers in a variety of health care sectors is projected to grow 16 percent through 2030, adding 2.6 million new jobs, and employers who violate FSLA are going to have the toughest time filling those jobs, according to the news releae. These trends indicate that industry employers will find it more difficult to recruit and retain without being highly competitive and ensuring compliance with law governing workers' rights.
"Healthcare workers are in great demand and facing record burnout," O'Rourke said. "Healthcare employers whose pay practices comply with the law have a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining workers. Employers unsure about their legal obligations should contact the U.S. Department of Labor to prevent costly violations and be able to compete as an employer."
The Wage and House Division found that Dobie Road-Ingham County Medical Care violated the FLSA's overtime requirements by paying workers overtime after 12 hours per day, rather than eight.
The Wage and House Division found that Martell & Company Home Care and Assistance paid straight time instead of time-and-a-half for overtime and didn't count or compensate workers for travel between work sites. The division assessed overtime violations in the company's Muskegon location and its Grand Rapids branch office.
