In lower than two months, Donald Trump can be sworn in because the forty seventh President of the US. President-elect Trump has already introduced that he’ll nominate Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his choose 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 12 months with a pointy focus to focus on the healthcare trade. The DOL issued a dozen press releases from Memorial Day to Labor Day alone regarding 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 amenities in Pennsylvania. Following an investigation, the DOL introduced swimsuit in opposition to the house owners of 15 healthcare amenities alleging the employers did not 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 employees employed by residential expert nursing, rehabilitation, and assisted residing amenities within the Keystone State. The courtroom discovered that the employers of those amenities engaged in actionable wrongdoing by: (i) willfully failing to pay workers for all hours labored, together with work finished 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 holding correct data of hours workers labored and compensation due for these hours. These wage and hour points are typically avoidable by implementing greatest practices and compliance protocols.
The DOL’s busy 12 months to date is a cautionary story to employers within the healthcare trade. Whereas the jury remains to be out on whether or not the incoming administration will proceed to tighten the screws on the healthcare trade, implementing the suitable protocols and procedures will make sure that regardless of which get together is in energy, there may be minimal danger of antagonistic findings in an investigation. Finest follow dictates that each one employers ought to assess and audit their wage and hour practices, together with (i) making certain that workers who’re exempt from extra time pay are correctly labeled as such below relevant federal and state legislation; (ii) making certain that impartial contractors are correctly labeled as such below relevant federal and state legislation; (iii) making certain 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) making certain compliance with relevant meal interval and relaxation break legal guidelines. Employers within the healthcare trade should be ready within the occasion of a Division of Labor audit. Working with exterior counsel to make sure correct compliance with the assorted federal and state wage and hour legal guidelines mitigates the chance of a lawsuit and potential damages.