WILDWOOD, FL – In urgent care centers, workdays may be long and hard. For clinicians who split their hours of work between two jointly owned central Florida facilities, their employers made the work a bit harder by failing to pay them all of their legally earned wages.
U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators found 441 Urgent Care LLC and Santos Primary Care Centers PLLC – which share common ownership – failed to combine hours employees worked at both care centers when determining when overtime was due. As a result, the employers failed to pay overtime when employees’ hours totaled more than 40 in a workweek, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In addition, the employers did not keep accurate records, another FLSA violation.
The two primary care centers paid $41,509 in back wages to 27 clinicians.
“Failing to combine the hours worked by employees at multiple establishments denies essential workers their proper wages and also gives the employer an unfair advantage over law-abiding competitors,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Wildalí De Jesús in Orlando, Florida. “We encourage all employers to review their pay practices and to contact us with any questions they have to avoid violations like those found in this investigation.”
Based in Summerfield, the employer operates one 441 Urgent Care Center clinic in Wildwood and three Santos Primary Care Center clinics in The Villages.
For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division.