U.S. Department of Labor issued the following announcement on Jan. 4.
After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), Jefferson Hills Area Ambulance Association – a private ambulance service operating as Southeast Regional EMS in Clairton and Elizabeth, Pennsylvania – has paid $35,492 in back wages to 12 first responder employees for violating overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
WHD investigators found that the employer failed to comply with an FLSA provision that allows employers to deduct eight hours of sleep time for employees whose duties require 24-hour shifts, such as first responders, under certain conditions. Federal law allows an employee on duty for 24 hours or more to agree to allow the employer to exclude a scheduled eight-hour sleep period from their total of hours worked per shift. The exclusion applies only if the employer furnishes adequate sleeping facilities and prevents work responsibilities from interrupting the employee’s sleep period.
In this case, when the employer failed to provide some employees a reasonable period of sleep – at least five hours – due to both the frequency and total time of interruptions, the conditions for the exclusion were not met. As a result, the employer was required to include the previously excluded eight-hour sleep period as work time.
Following the investigation, the employer paid eight employees at the Clairton location $25,545 and four employees at the Elizabeth location $9,947 in back wages.
“The Wage and Hour Division is committed to ensuring that employees receive the wages they have legally earned for all the hours they have worked – including legally required overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director John DuMont in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “The U.S. Department of Labor encourages all employers to reach out to us for information on how to comply with the law and avoid violations like those found in this case.”
Original source can be found here.