What started as an investigation of a single Bowling Green-based caregiving provider became a sweeping review of six other franchise locations across three states when investigators uncovered systemic violations by the employer. In total, the investigations by the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division led to the recovery of $201,356 in back wages for 320 workers. The employer also agreed to correct its non-compliant pay practices. An initial investigation of Trusted Senior Care LLC — operator of Home Instead Senior Care in Bowling Green — found violations of the overtime and recordkeeping regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. When investigators became aware of the systemic nature of the violations, they expanded the investigation to include the six other Home Instead franchise locations in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee owned and operated by Brad Cannon.
Investigators found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act in all seven locations, including:
- Failure to combine all hours worked by employees when they worked in multiple positions within the same workweek, resulting in failure to pay overtime after 40 hours worked in a workweek.
- Failure to count and pay for hours worked while on-call.
- Failure to count and pay for all travel time and work performed before and after scheduled shifts.
- Failure to include certain bonuses into the rate-of-pay when calculating overtime pay, resulting in underpayment of overtime hours.
- Failure to retain records of all hours worked by employees.
In addition, the division found that the employer failed to compensate some nonexempt employees for all of their hours worked at the Bowling Green establishment.
