Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer — a healthcare facility providing services to the Humphrey, Leflore, and Sunflower tri-counties area — automatically deducted 30-minute lunch breaks from some employees’ hours without making sure they were free of work-related tasks and able to take the breaks. Investigators learned that, several times a week, some of the facility’s nurses need to work through lunch breaks to update patient records. By automatically deducting 30-minute lunch breaks, the employer failed to account for all the hours that the nurses worked, which led to violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provisions. The division also determined that North Sunflower Medical Center did not combine employees’ hours when they worked in different departments at the facility, and failed to use the total number of hours worked when calculating additional half-time rates owed to these employees. In addition, investigators found the employer failed to maintain an accurate record of hours worked for employees. The employer was required to pay $201,436 in back wages for 110 workers.
