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A Pittsburgh nursing facility operation and its payroll office are on the hook for $35.8 million in back wages and damages to 6,000 current and former workers in what the U.S. Department of Labor in a statement Tuesday called one of the U.S.’s largest wage recoveries.
Samuel Halper, CEO of Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services and its payroll office, CHMS Group, oversaw and implemented the illegal pay practices, DOL found in a July 22 judgment.
The WHD found that management at 15 different nursing facilities “willfully” denied workers their wages for all hours worked, including during meal breaks, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Management also factored nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials into overtime pay calculations, among other violations.
Halper’s nursing homes skirted around “paying overtime by incorrectly treating employees as exempt from the [FLSA’s] overtime requirements,” DOL said. Moreover, the nursing home facilities and the payroll offices failed to keep “accurate” records of the hours employees worked and the compensation due therein.
Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda called the Pennsylvania federal court’s judgment in this case “decisive and historic,” and a confirmation of “the Department of Labor’s position that the employers committed wage theft intentionally.”
Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman condemned wage theft, particularly in the healthcare industry. “Far too often, our investigations find that workers who provide essential care services to those who need them most are not receiving their hard-earned wages from employers,” Looman said.
