Investigations of pay practices in the health care industry are ongoing across the nation. Many lawsuits have hit hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care providers concerning unlawful pay practices. Most of those lawsuits involve automatic payroll deductions for meal breaks, even though the breaks were often interrupted or not taken at all.
Two lawsuits have resulted in back pay for nurses and other patient-directed employees from health care providers who failed to pay them for interrupted and missed rest breaks. The Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA) has filed lawsuits against four hospitals for failing to provide nurses with adequate breaks. According to the WSNA, the two successful lawsuits demonstrate the legal principle that in order to be a bona fide unpaid break, "a nurse's rest break must be uninterrupted time away from work duties, not a series of small, intermittent breaks which consist of brief interruptions[.]"
Research has shown that many health care employers are not in compliance with federal wage-and-hour laws. Such investigations have included various health care facilities, including hospitals, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and group homes for the disabled. Recent federal investigations resulted in findings that many health care providers are not paying proper overtime to employees working more than 40 hours in a work week. Those findings have resulted in further investigations and lawsuits delving into pay practices throughout the health care industry, resulting in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers around the country paying millions of dollars to settle claims for back wages to employees. Typical violations of employees' rights include failure to pay hourly employees for work before or after scheduled shifts and failure to include interrupted and missed breaks as time worked.
Federal Labor Department regulations do not require pay for "bona fide" meal periods. Those regulations, however, state that an employee must be completely relieved from work during the meal period for it to be considered a "bond fide" unpaid break. Payroll systems utilized by many hospitals and other health care providers automatically deduct a 30 minute break from each employee's shift, regardless of whether the break was interrupted by job duties and was therefore not "bona fide" as defined by law.
Federal Labor Department regulations also provide that for purposes of overtime, employers generally must include time spent by hourly employees at meetings to discuss work-related issues in such employees' work time.
Sources:
Washington Hospitals Sued, Scrubs, Oct 22, 2010
Pay Practices in Health Care are Investigated, The New York Times, August 9, 2010
