Sacramento-area care homes ordered to pay $800K in fines for shortchanging workers on OT pay
Senior care providers in Sacramento, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Davis must pay more than $800,000 in fines after failing to pay overtime pay to dozens of their workers.
U.S. Department of Labor officials announced the fines Tuesday after a wide-ranging investigation into alleged exploitation of workers, many of whom are women and low-wage earners, at the facilities in the capital region.
Labor investigators recovered more than $306,000 from the owner of six regional elder residential care facilities in Sacramento, Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove.
Officials said the owner failed to pay overtime wages owed to 44 employees at Laguna Village RCFE, Laguna Springs RCFE and Signature Living on Lavelli Way in Elk Grove; Havenwood RCFE and Capital Senior Care in Sacramento; and Signature Living RCFE in Rancho Cordova.
The care homes’ owner was also assessed more than $18,000 in additional penalties, federal officials said.
“The Department of Labor is committed to stopping the exploitation of workers by residential care industry employers and holding them accountable for their unscrupulous employment practices,” Sacramento-based Wage and Hour Division District Director Cesar Avila said in a statement. “Our investigations find many of care workers harmed are women and low-wage earners, who can least afford to be denied their full wages.”
Also fined was Home health care provider Timeless Homecare Inc. operates Amada Senior Care in Davis. Labor investigators recovered nearly $28,000 in wages and damages from the facility and assessed more than $2,000 in penalties after they found a pair of employees had been paid only partial overtime wages, officials said.
Federal labor officials say wage violations are all too common in a home health and personal care industry that employs more than 700,000 workers in California and where Department of Labor investigators have recovered millions of dollars in back wages for thousands of employees so far this fiscal year.
More than 2,300 investigations by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recovered more than $37.8 million in back wages for nearly 30,000 health care workers nationwide in fiscal year 2024. The division also slapped employers with more than $2.8 million in penalties for violating federal labor regulations.
This story was originally published November 12, 2024 at 12:18 PM.
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