Home healthcare workers assist their clients with daily living tasks and even stay overnight at their homes to provide around-the-clock care. Despite their essential labor, these workers are sometimes denied all their rightful wages by their employer’s illegal pay practices, as federal investigators found in a recent labor investigation in Columbus. The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division reviewed the pay practices of 1st Choice Family Services Inc. and found the employer failed to pay overtime to some workers paid on a salary basis. The employer paid “straight time” for hours over 8 in a day or 80 hours in a two-week pay period when, by law, healthcare workers should have been paid time and one-half their normal rate of pay. 1st Choice also failed to record overnight care providers’ sleep hours as hours worked, as required. These actions denied affected workers their full overtime wages and violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division’s investigation led to the recovery of $603,882 for 119 workers employed by 1st Choice Family Services Inc. at its Columbus headquarters and at locations in Reynoldsburg and Findlay.
