Everest Home Care LLC, a Pittsburgh-based home care agency, is required to pay more than $1.4 million for failing to pay overtime wages to 218 workers.
Investigators with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when it paid workers a straight-time hourly rate instead of one-and-a-half the required rate for more than 40 hours in a workweek. They also found the agency falsely represented straight-time pay as overtime when overtime wages were required. Moreover, Everest failed to include recruitment commissions and hourly coronavirus hazard pay in employees’ required rates of pay when calculating overtime.
The Biden administration has been laser-focused on identifying and punishing companies that violate the FLSA. In March, another Pennsylvania home care agency was ordered to pay $4.5 million in back wages and damages to more than 500 workers due to FLSA violations.
In the recent case, the consent judgement requires Everest Home Care and owner Bhuwan Acharya to pay $719,962 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages.
In fiscal year 2021, the division recovered more than $13.8 million for more than 17,000 healthcare industry workers, according to the Department of Labor in a statement about the Pittsburgh case. The division made a point of saying in the statement that with the shortage of industry workers and competition for talent, home care employers would be wise to be fair to employees.
“As the U.S. population ages rapidly, healthcare workers are in great demand and facing record burnout at the same time,” Principal Deputy Wage and Hour Division Administrator Jessica Looman said. “Healthcare industry employers who fail to respect workers’ rights are more likely to struggle than their competitors as they seek to attract and retain workers.”
