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 Printer-Friendly Version
ESA-WHD New Release: [09/17/1998]
Contact Name: Brad Mitchell or Juan Solano
Phone Number: (312) 353-6976
Release Number: V-253
LABOR DEPARTMENT SUES THREE ILLINOIS NURSING HOMES FOR BACK WAGES FOLLOWING OVERTIME PAY VIOLATIONS
Chicago — Three southwestern Illinois nursing homes, and SW management Company, Skokie, Ill., which manages the three homes, have been named in a complaint filed in Federal District Court by the U.S. Labor Department alleging repeated violations of federal overtime pay regulations and seeking back wages and damages for workers.
Virgil Calvert Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, East St. Louis, Cahokia Nursing and Rehabilitation Canter, Cahokia, Caseyville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Caseyville, and SW Management have been accused by the Labor Department of paying workers less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of eight in any workday and in excess of eighty in a work period of fourteen consecutive days. The Department charged that the firm has violated the overtime pay and record keeping provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) since Sept. 1, 1995.
The majority of employers covered by the FLSA are required to pay one and one-half times the regular rate of pay after 40 hours in a single work week. However, the FLSA allows employers "engaged in the operation of a hospital or an establishment which is an institution primarily engaged in the care of the sick, the aged, or the mentally ill who reside on the premises" to pay on the 8/80 basis.
The Labor Department is asking the Federal District Court to order the firm to pay back wages and liquidated damages to workers and is seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting the firm from violations of the FLSA in the future.
In November, 1997, the Labor Department assessed civil money penalties totaling $91,000 against the three nursing homes for repeated violations of the federal overtime pay regulations. Those assessments are currently under appeal.
Investigations of the nursing homes were conducted by the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division District office, 509 W. Capitol Avenue, Springfield.
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