A federal judge orders a Chester home health agency to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and damages to current and former employees after the U.S. government accused the company of failing to compensate them for overtime. Ta.
U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro has ruled that a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found that Qualit Healthcare LLC and its owner, Tejan Camara, had violated overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Act by cutting dozens of workers off. He signed the order in October after discovering he owed a total of $414,351 to a third party. The regulator announced the standards law on Monday.
According to the government, from 2020 to 2023, Qualit Healthcare intentionally withheld overtime pay for more than 60 workers. Current and former employees were liable to pay as little as $49.74 in one case and as much as $62,223.24 in another, according to court records.
The company paid employees between $12 and $15 an hour, but failed to pay them overtime pay of at least 1.5 times the legal wage for hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week, according to the Department of Labor. .
“Care workers provide an essential service to people in need in their communities and should be paid the full amount of wages they earn,” James Cain, Philadelphia District Director of the department's Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement. I have a right.” “Enforcement actions against employers like Qualit Healthcare help ensure that workers are paid as required by law and remind other employers of the importance of compliance. Masu.”
Qualit Healthcare provides in-home services such as cooking and cleaning to the elderly and people with disabilities, according to court records and the company's website. Mr. Camara, the company's owner, declined to comment in a telephone interview. A lawyer for Qualit Healthcare did not respond to a request for comment.
In recent years, the Department of Labor's inspector general found that dozens of home health care companies in southeastern Pennsylvania were not paying minimum wage or overtime. One reason is that under the state's Medicaid rules, Pennsylvania does not pay agencies extra for overtime. This is difficult to avoid due to labor shortages and increased demand for care services.
» Read more: Home care workers in the Philadelphia area are often scammed out of overtime pay. Pennsylvania's Medicaid rules don't help.
Monday's announcement came after Acting Labor Secretary Julie A. Hsu filed an enforcement suit against the company in May. In October, Qualit Healthcare reached a settlement agreement, known as a “consent order,” with the Department of Labor to pay wages and damages. The court ordered the company to pay a civil penalty of $5,649 to the Department of Labor.
The agreement also prohibits the company from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act in the future.
Prior to the filing of the judgment, Qualit Healthcare paid approximately $208,000 in unpaid wages and damages, with more than $206,000 remaining to be paid to the workers.
