Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC office, was quoted in the Bloomberg BNA Daily Labor Report, in “Labor Department Sues Home Care Companies,” by Chris Opfer.
Following is an excerpt:
The Labor Department filed a handful of lawsuits against home care providers for wage-and-hour violations, signaling that the DOL isn’t likely to soon revisit an Obama era rule that entitles domestic service workers to minimum wages and overtime pay.
The agency has sued at least five different home care companies in separate cases over the past three weeks, Bloomberg Law’s review of federal court dockets shows. The department accuses the companies of failing to pay home care workers minimum hourly wages or refusing to pay the workers time-and-a-half rates for all hours beyond 40 per week.
A Labor Department spokesman didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment.
Each of the lawsuits cites a regulation enacted in 2015 that extended wage-and-hour protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act to a majority of the roughly 3 million home health and personal service aides working across the country. Critics of the rule said the DOL overstepped its authority by extending the law to “companionship services” workers because Congress meant to exempt them. …
It’s too soon to tell if the new lawsuits are “a blip or a trend,” Paul DeCamp, who ran the wage-and-hour division during the George W. Bush administration, told Bloomberg Law. “It would make sense to keep an eye on whether we see further lawsuits or more settlements.”
DeCamp represents businesses in labor and employment matters for Epstein Becker & Green PC.
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