News Release
US Department of Labor seeking Maryland home healthcare workers who may be owed back wages, damages in $1.13M recovery
PIKESVILLE, MD – The U.S. Department of Labor is trying to locate home healthcare workers employed from April 2020 through March 2022 by a Pikesville company who may be owed part of nearly $1.13 million in back wages and damages the department’s Wage and Hour Division recovered on their behalf.
On Sept. 15, 2022, the division reached a settlement with employers Salim Inc., operating as A Plus Personal Home Care, Timur Yusufov, Julie Rakhamimov and Ilona Yusufov, who paid $569,138 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to resolve violations the agency found during its investigation.
The division determined the employers denied a total of 193 home healthcare workers overtime wages for hours over 40 in a workweek when they misclassified the employees as independent contractors. Investigators learned the employer had given workers the option to be paid at a lower hourly rate as employees or as independent contractors at a higher hourly rate. These actions violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“Too often, home healthcare workers are denied all of their hard-earned wages in an industry where employers misclassifying employees as independent contractors is a common violation,” said Wage and Hour Division Assistant District Director Susana Rondon in Arlington, Virginia. “We are determined to locate A Plus Personal Home Care employees who were denied overtime illegally and see that they receive the wages they’re owed.”
Home healthcare workers who believe they may be owed back overtime wages should use the division’s online Workers Owed Wages search tool, or call the division’s Baltimore District Office at (410) 962-6211.
A Plus Personal Home Care serves central Maryland, and the metro-Baltimore and District of Columbia areas, with offices in Pikesville and Gaithersburg.
For more information about workers’ rights and other employee rights enforced by the division, contact the toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Workers can call the Wage and Hour Division confidentially with questions regardless of where they are from, and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages. Learn more about the division, including its search tool to learn if you are owed back wages collected by the division.
