Health care employees worked ‘off-the-clock,’ feds say. Now Florida company pays up

Dozens of health care workers in Florida were never paid for time worked “off-the-clock” and a federal investigation followed, according to labor officials.

Now, as a result of the investigation, an Orlando-based health care practice has paid 49 employees back, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Orlando Health Medical Group Urology has paid its employees $244,011 in back pay plus damages after the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division investigators discovered some people went unpaid for extra work, the agency announced in a Jan. 23 news release.

“Employees have a right to be compensated for all the work they do,” Wage and Hour Division District Director Wildalí De Jesús in Orlando said in a statement. “When employers fail to pay employees for all the hours they work, they get the benefits of that labor and take advantage of these workers unfairly.”

McClatchy News contacted Orlando Health Medical Group Inc. for comment on Jan. 23 and didn’t immediately receive a response.

The Orlando Health workers were owed wages after investigators discovered they had worked before and after their scheduled shifts, according to officials. Despite this, they didn’t receive overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, officials said.

What’s more is that investigators found that Orlando Health wasn’t accurately recording the amount of hours its employees worked, according to the release.

The 49 employees who were underpaid worked at Orlando Health’s headquarters in Orlando and at the company’s locations in Clermont, Lake Mary and Oviedo, according to the DOL. Each location was investigated by the Wage and Hour Division.

“Today’s workers can choose to work for employers who value them, pay them full wages and respect their rights as workers,” De Jesus said. “Employers who comply with labor law and appreciate the dignity of work will have a clear advantage when it comes to retaining and recruiting the people they need for their businesses to operate.”

Employees who believe they aren’t getting fully paid can contact a Wage and Hour official in their state by accessing the DOL’s interactive map.

Pizza workers talked with the feds, then owner fired them in Colorado, officials say

Caregivers worked through lunch without pay, feds say. Now Michigan company owes them

Adult care home made employees work through breaks in CA, feds say. It owes $690,000