A federal investigation has found the owner and operator of five central California residential care homes denied overtime wages to 42 caregivers by requiring them to sign away their rights to overtime in exchange for an extra $1 per hour worked and creating a second payroll to hide the fraud. Investigators from the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined Santa Maria-based Bauer Residential Inc. and its president, Mihaela Bauer, took deliberate steps to avoid paying the overtime rate of time and one-half for hours over 40 in a workweek, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. They also learned Bauer made employees sign an agreement to forego the overtime rate and accept just $1 more per hour over their regular pay. Investigators also learned the employer failed to keep accurate records of employees’ hours worked and created separate timesheets for some employees, resulting in additional recordkeeping violations. In total, the division recovered $545,655 in back wages and liquidated damages for the affected caregivers, whose payments in back wages and damages ranged from $124 to $22,477. The division also assessed — and Bauer Residential Inc. has paid — $24,402 in civil money penalties for the employer’s willful violations.
