Home healthcare workers often work for wages which are just over or close tp the minimum wage, yet their work is highly regarded.
The worst situation for many home healthcare workers is when they find out that they are not being paid what was agreed upon when they were first employed.
Underpayment can make it difficult to pay every day bills, but challenging a discrepancy in pay may seem to many home healthcare workers to be
Sometimes, this sort of discrepancy is just a misunderstanding or an administrative error that can be sorted out with persistence between you and your employer’s HR or accounts department.
If you find that your wages have not been paid properly, e.g. paid under the minimum wage, allowing for deductions, you may be able to take legal action against our employer.
The first place to file a complaint about your wage is with the department of labor’s Wages and Hours Division, but you should only do this if you have already made contact with your own employer’s HR or wages / accounts department with no success.
What to Look For on Your Paycheck
As long as you are being paid on hourly wages, you should be getting regular paychecks. If these are prepared correctly, there is a lot of information on them which you should look at carefully to make sure you are not underpaid.
Each paycheck should tell you the hourly wage you are on, how many hours you worked, whether you had been paid any overtime, and deductions.
Quite often, a careful check of your paycheck should eliminate most concerns about being underpaid, but there may also have been genuine mistakes in the way your pay was calculated.
You may also suspect that you are the victim of deliberate wage theft. There should be clear signs on your paycheck that all is not right. Are you:
- Being paid the hourly wage agreed when you were first employed?
- Paid at least the minimum wage? The state minimum wage maybe higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or less, depending on the state where you work as a home health care worker. You should be paid at least the higher of the 2 minimum wages.
- Being pad for any overtime you have worked? This is a frequent problem in home healthcare work. You are entitled to receive time and a half for any hours over 40 hours in any 7 day period. For example, if you are on a $9 an hour hourly wage and work 45 hours one week, you should receive 5 x $9 x 1.5 = $67.50 minus tax for the 5 hours overtime you did.
There may also be deductions for things like uniform, transportation, accommodation, meals, as well as standard things like tax and insurance.
You should check all these deductions as well as the pay very carefully to make sure you think it is ether correct or wrong.
What to Do if You Are a Victim of Wage Theft
Employers who deliberately attempt to pay their workers less than the agreed amount probably do it to other employees, too.
You may hear complaints from your fellow employees about incorrect paychecks and this could prove valuable evidence if you do choose to file a complaint or lawsuit against your employer.
Before you go and see the local Department of Labor about your complaint, make sure you see your own accounts department or HR first.
Show them your paycheck and tell the why you think you have been shortchanged. In many genuine cases, your employer will acknowledge an accounting error and make up the difference.
However, if you are unlucky enough to have a rogue employer, you will find that you get nowhere when presenting your paycheck. You will need to start legal action against your employer.
The first step if you have got nowhere with your own employer is to contact the Wages and Hours Division at the nearest Department of Labor and file a complaint, explaining exactly why you think you have not been paid the agreed amount.
You will need evidence of wage theft, such as an employment agreement, your paychecks, a record of what you think you should have been aid etc.
The Labor Commissioner should investigate the complaint and has the powers to issue fines if your employer has broken the law and insist that your employer pays what is owed.
You will find it an advantage to use a knowledgeable employment lawyer throughout.
