In lower than two months, Donald Trump shall be sworn in because the forty seventh President of america. President-elect Trump has already introduced that he’ll nominate Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his decide to function the following Secretary of the Division of Labor (“DOL”). It stays to be seen if the Trump DOL will proceed the present administration’s focusing on of the healthcare trade.
Certainly, the DOL below President Biden had a busy yr with a pointy focus to focus on the healthcare trade. The DOL issued a dozen press releases from Memorial Day to Labor Day alone referring to settlements with or judgments in opposition to varied healthcare entities. The settlements and judgments vary from five-figure quantities to $36 million.
The Division of Labor’s tenacity in pursuing potential wage and hour violators within the healthcare trade is spotlighted by a latest judgment in opposition to a bunch of nursing services in Pennsylvania. Following an investigation, the DOL introduced swimsuit in opposition to the house owners of 15 healthcare services alleging the employers didn’t correctly pay extra time. After a 13-day trial involving almost 50 witnesses, a federal courtroom awarded $35.8 million in extra time backpay and liquidated damages to six,000 present and former staff employed by residential expert nursing, rehabilitation, and assisted residing services within the Keystone State. The courtroom discovered that the employers of those services engaged in actionable wrongdoing by: (i) willfully failing to pay workers for all hours labored, together with work carried out throughout meal breaks; (ii) failing to include all promised compensation, together with non-discretionary bonuses and shift differentials, when calculating extra time pay; (iii) avoiding paying extra time by incorrectly treating workers as exempt from the act’s extra time necessities; and (iv) not preserving correct data of hours workers labored and compensation due for these hours. These wage and hour points are usually avoidable by implementing finest practices and compliance protocols.
The DOL’s busy yr to date is a cautionary story to employers within the healthcare trade. Whereas the jury continues to be out on whether or not the incoming administration will proceed to tighten the screws on the healthcare trade, implementing the best protocols and procedures will be certain that regardless of which social gathering is in energy, there’s minimal threat of adversarial findings in an investigation. Finest follow dictates that each one employers ought to assess and audit their wage and hour practices, together with (i) guaranteeing that workers who’re exempt from extra time pay are correctly labeled as such below relevant federal and state regulation; (ii) guaranteeing that unbiased contractors are correctly labeled as such below relevant federal and state regulation; (iii) guaranteeing that non-discretionary bonuses and different relevant compensation are included within the calculation of the common price of pay for extra time functions for non-exempt workers; and (iv) guaranteeing compliance with relevant meal interval and relaxation break legal guidelines. Employers within the healthcare trade must be ready within the occasion of a Division of Labor audit. Working with outdoors counsel to make sure correct compliance with the varied federal and state wage and hour legal guidelines mitigates the danger of a lawsuit and potential damages.
