By Jessica Kohn
Friday, February 2, 2024, ex-direct care worker Jennifer Sharp alleged that Community Health Systems Inc. had been automatically deducting a half hour of wages per day regardless of whether their workers actually found the time to escape their worktime duties and take a break.[1] This proposed class action and collective action filed in Tennessee federal court is demanding all unpaid overtime wages dating back to November 2018 in additional to liquidated damages.[2] Additionally, on behalf of a similarly defined class dating back to November 2015, Sharp is demanding all withheld straight time wages.[3] Sharp claimed that in her two and a half years working at LaFollette Medical Center, she and her colleagues were scheduled to work between thirty-six and forty hours a week, which included a thirty minute unpaid meal break each day.[4]
However, healthcare workers often end up not taking this break because they are unable to slip away from their patients.[5] This is because healthcare workers are required to respond to patients whenever they are needed, regardless if they are on their break.[6] This makes it rare for a healthcare worker to have thirty uninterrupted minutes which leads to them working two and half hours of uncompensated overtime each week.[7]
Sharp says that “because her colleagues routinely worked more than 40 hours per week, untaken break time should have been compensated at the time-and-a-half guaranteed under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”[8] Under the Fair Labor Standards Act,
“Covered nonexempt employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 per workweek (any fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours – seven consecutive 24-hour periods) at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay. There is no limit on the number of hours employees 16 years or older may work in any workweek. The FLSA does not require overtime pay for work on weekends, holidays, or regular days of rest, unless overtime is worked on such days.”[9]
Sharp claims that because the defendants are sophisticated parties and employers, that they knowingly, willfully and with reckless disregard carried out this illegal pattern of failing to pay their employees and other similarly situated employees the proper amount of overtime compensation.[10] Sharp believes that the defendant’s sophistication made them aware that they were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.[11] According to Sharp, “the hospital knew or should have known that its automatic deduction policy, paired with its refusal to fully relieve workers of their duties would lead to overtime underreporting.”[12] Because of this, Sharp is claiming that the policy in place is a willful flouting of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Tennessee state wage protections that is an attempt to exploit employees.[13]
[1] See Caleb Drickey, Health Workers Say They Are Owed Meal Break Pay, l. 360 (Feb. 5, 2024), https://www.law360.com/employment/articles/1794278/health-workers-say-they-are-owed-meal-break-pay.
[2] See id.
[3] See id.
[4] See id.
[5] See id.
[6] See id.
[7] See id.
[8] Id.
[9] 29 U.S.C. § 207 (1949).
[10] See Drickey, supra note 1.
[11] See id.
[12] Id.
[13] See id.
The L•E•Jer 