Prairie River Home Care Inc., a home health care provider based in Buffalo, Minn., has agreed to pay $150,043 in overtime pay owed to 144 workers following an investigation in which the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division discovered that the company violated overtime pay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The workers were employed by Prairie River Home Care Inc. of Buffalo but worked in the following Minnesota cities: Fairmont, Hutchinson, Lexington, Mankato, Marshall, Rochester, Rogers, Sartell and St. Cloud.

“The department is committed to ensuring that workers receive all wages to which they are legally entitled,” said Jose Medina, district director of the Wage and Hour Division’s office in Minneapolis, Minn. “When employees, especially vulnerable workers such as we found in this case, are deprived of their rightful wages, employers should know the department will not hesitate to take legal action to recover those back wages.”  The Wage and Hour Division’s investigation found that Prairie River Home Care violated the FLSA by failing to pay 144 current and former employees time and one-half their regular rates of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week.  (click on link to read full story)