Nearly 100 Twin Cities health care staffers have been awarded more than $400,000 in back wages and damages in a federally brokered settlement involving an employment agency that didn't properly pay overtime.
All Temporaries Midwest Inc. of Minneapolis, which provides short-term staffing to long-term care facilities, failed to properly apply the overtime pay rate to 92 staffers for at least two years, the U.S. Labor Department said in an announcement last week.
The agency has agreed to make up for nearly $250,000 in overtime compensation as well as pay more than $150,000 in damages plus interest.
From June 2014 to June 2016, All Temporaries Midwest did follow labor law and paid the staffers at an overtime rate of 1½ times their hourly wage for working 41 to 47 hours in a week. However, the Labor Department determined, the employment agency reverted the workers' pay back to their regular rate once they hit 48 hours in a week.
"When employees worked over 48 hours in a workweek," federal investigators revealed in a filing in federal court in Minneapolis, "the employer used an 'adjusted pay calculator' that calculated a reduced rate of pay to [falsely] show that overtime hours were paid at time and a half the regular rate."
All Temporaries Midwest Inc. places registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and certified nursing assistants with care centers around the metro area.
Messages were left Monday with the agency and its operator, Mark Liveringhouse, and their attorneys seeking comment about the settlement.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
