The U.S. Department of Labor announced this week that it has recovered more than $28 million in back wages and damages for nearly 25,000 workers in the home health, skilled nursing facility (SNF) and residential care settings.
Specifically, the DOL reported that it had recovered $1.2 million in back wages for 600 home health care workers in Texas and Louisiana.
Those agencies were Ace Primary Homecare Inc. in Pharr, Texas; Guardian Angels Care Services Inc. in Alexandria, Louisiana; Fernandez Care Assistance LLC in San Juan, Texas; and Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans in Laredo, Texas.
Last year, the DOL launched an initiative through its wage and hour division focused on improving compliance in home health, nursing, residential care and other care-focused settings.
The mission of the initiative is to protect and improve the rights and protections for workers in these industries.
Since the program’s launch, the wage and hour division has completed more than 1,600 investigations and identified violations in 80% of its reviews, according to a report from the DOL.
The investigations have led to assessments of nearly $1.3 million in civil monetary penalties for employers who willfully violated federal law.
The most common violations involved employers failing to pay overtime, failing to pay federal minimum wages or the misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
The investigations also found that violations often hurt women of color, according to the DOL.
“In the U.S., women make up nearly 80% of the people employed in health care and social assistance and most are women of color, notably Black women,” Jessica Looman, the principal deputy administrator for the Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement. “These dedicated professionals work long hours to provide compassionate care to people in need, yet too many find themselves working for employers who deprive them of their full wages and benefits they’ve earned for their hard work. We are determined to make sure these workers’ rights are respected and protected.”
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