Part-owner of an assisted living provider pays more than $1 million in independent contractor case. Minnesota attorney general sues Shipt over IC misclassification. Healthcare staffing firm VDA OC pleads guilty to suppressing the wages of school nurses.

Assisted living provider

The part-owner and operator of a Pittsburgh-based assisted living provider paid more than $1 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 47 workers, the US Department of Labor announced under a consent judgment Oct. 27.

The part-owner and operator, Kelley Oliver-Hollis of Serenitycare LLC — which operates as Serenitycare — owns and operates six homes and one training facility in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

According to the department, Oliver-Hollis willfully misclassified direct care workers and direct care leads as independent contractors, deducted advanced leave from two employees’ final paychecks, reducing their earnings to less than the federally required $7.25 hourly minimum wage, and improperly classified them as exempt from overtime.

She also paid employees straight time for scheduled shift hours and not actual hours worked.

Additionally, the employer paid straight time for overtime hours in cash and did not record the payments, coerced some employees to become independent contractors to avoid paying them overtime, and failed to keep accurate totals of daily and weekly hours worked.

The investigation also revealed that Oliver-Hollis asked some workers to write letters refusing the back wages and to falsely claim they chose to be independent contractors for financial gain.

Oliver-Hollis has paid the department $1.05 million as part of its recovery for the affected workers and a $44,741 civil money penalty for willfully violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The court’s judgment has forbidden Oliver-Hollis from violating the FLSA in the future.

Serenitycare provides direct care services to patients, including patients with mental disabilities.

Minnesota lawsuit

The Minnesota attorney general sued Shipt, a grocery delivery platform, over its classification of workers as independent contractors.

The announcement comes in conjunction with the District of Columbia’s suit against the Birmingham, Alabama-based platform.

Both lawsuits claim the Target-owned B2C work services platform classified its workers as independent contractors to avoid labor costs.

According to the lawsuit, despite Shipt’s characterization of shoppers as independent contractors, the platform determines who is eligible to be a shopper and controls customers’ access to shoppers and vice versa. Shipt monitors shoppers’ performance and sets the markup for goods ordered through its service, leaving no opportunity for shoppers to profit due to their business acumen or customer relationships.

Additionally, the lawsuit claims Shipt limits shoppers’ communication with customers, masking their numbers from each other while shoppers perform their work.

“Every Minnesota worker, especially those who were essential to all of us during and after the worst days of Covid, should take home every dollar they earn under the law — no exceptions. But some companies break the rules and the law by misclassifying their employees as independent contractors, which means those workers miss out on some of the law’s most basic protections,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said.

“I’m suing Shipt because, instead of playing by the rules most Minnesota employers play by, Shipt is taking advantage of Minnesotans to enrich itself while leaving workers to fend for themselves. Unlike other employees, these workers have no clarity on how much they will be paid day to day, and they often don’t receive the minimum wage and overtime they’re entitled to.”

Healthcare staffing suit

Healthcare staffing firm VDA OC (formerly Advantage On Call) pleaded guilty to entering into and engaging in a conspiracy with a competitor to allocate employee nurses and to fix their wages, the US Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The San Diego-based firm was first indicted on suspicion of colluding to suppress the wages of school nurses in 2021.

According to the department, from October 2016 to July 2017, VDA, through one of its employees, participated in the conspiracy and was one of two primary providers of contract nursing services to the Clark County School District.

In addition, VDA was sentenced to pay $62,000 as a criminal fine and $72,000 as restitution to victim nurses.

“Free and open labor markets are a cornerstone of the American dream,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Today’s guilty plea demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that workers receive competitive wages and a fair chance to pursue better work and that criminals who conspire to deprive them of those rights are held accountable. The court’s sentence will compensate the hardworking healthcare workers who were victims of this crime.”