MAJORITY MEMBERS MINORITY MEMBERS ROBERT SCOTT. VIRGINIA. VIRGINIA FOXK. NORTH CAROLINA, ChaIrrTIarI F24 New)?! SUSAN A DAVIS. CALIFORNIA GRIJALVA. ARIZONA JOE COURTNEY. CONNECTICUT MAFICIAL FUDGE OHIO OREGORID KILILI NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS DAVID P. ROE. TENNESSEE LENN THOMPSON. GUTHRIE KENTUCKY BRADLEY BYRIIE. ALAENJA GLENN FREDERICAS SUZANNE SONANICI. OREGON RICKW ALLEN GEORGIA MARK COM ITTEE LLOYD KSMUCKER. ALMA ADNJS, NORTH CAROLINA JIM BANKS. INDIANA MARK OESAULNIER. CALIFORNIA MARK WALKER. NORTH CAROLINA DONALD NOIICROSS.NEW.IERSEY EDUCATION AND LABOR JAMES COLIER. KENTUCKY PRNJILA JAYAPAL II BEN CLINE VIRGINIA JOSEPH NORELLE. NEWYORK Russ FULCNER. IDAHO SUSAN WILD. U.S. HOUSE OI: REPRESENTATIVES JOSH HARDERCALIFORNIA A LUCY LICSATHCEORGIA 2176 YBU RN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING i$ssm KIM OAN LAUREN ILLINOIS DC 20515-5100 WILLINII IN. SOUTH CAROLINA JANAIIA HAYES. CONNECTICUT DUSTII JOHNSON. SOUTH DAKOTA DONNAE SHALALATLORIOA FRED KELLER, ANDY LEVIN NICHICAN ILHAN OMAR. MINNESOTA DAVID TFIO NE HALEV STEVENS, MICHIGAN SUSIE LEE, NEVADA LORI MASSACHUSET JOAQUIN CASTRO TEXAS August 2, 2019 The Honorable Cheryl Stanton Administrator Wage and Hour Division U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue, NW. Washington, DC. 20210 Dear Administrator Stanton: It was a pleasure meeting with you on July 16, 2019. Thank you for sharing your vision for the Department of Labor?s Wage and Hour Division (WHD). I write to inquire into the efforts to address the troubling trend of wage and hour violations in the senior residential care industry.1 As you know, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides minimum wage and overtime protections for most workers. However, it exempts workers who provide companionship services to elderly persons and live-in domestic service workers from overtime protections. In 2015, WHD updated its regulations to include many direct care workers, such as certi?ed nursing assistants and home health aides, in the minimum wage and overtime protections. Live?in domestic workers remain exempt from the overtime requirements; however, they are not exempt from the law?s requirement to be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked. Yet even with these statutory and regulatory requirements, enforcement of the FLSA appears to be failing many eldercare workers. A recent investigative report by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) revealed that an alarming number of workers in the senior residential care industry earn wages that are effectively well below the federal minimum wage I In this letter I refer to residential care facilities that predominantly serve the elderly and people with disabilities that fall under the following North American Industry Classi?cation System (NAICS) codes: 6233, 62331, 623311, and 623312. The Honorable Cheryl Stanton August 2, 2019 Page 2 and overtime-eligible workers are not compensated for overtime hours worked.2 The CIR report found that some workers in senior residential care facilities were paid as little as $2 or $3.50 an hour.3 The report also found systemic violations of the overtime requirements, including cases in which certain overtime eligible caregivers were required to work around-the? clock shifts with no overtime pay.4 In order to better understand what WHD is doing to protect these vulnerable workers, I request the following information and documents: 1. WHD currently enforces numerous laws with fewer than 900 investigators.5 In its Fiscal Year 2020 budget request WHD stated, prioritizes resources by using an evidence-based, multi?pronged approach to improve compliance which includes delivering compliance assistance to employers, conducting investigations in high? violation industries. . 3?6 Please provide a detailed explanation of the strategic enforcement that WHD engages in to target high-violation industries, including whether the senior residential care industry is one of them. 2. For the past ten years, please provide the number of cases brought by WHD each year against senior residential care facilities. Please also include the number of currently pending cases. 3. The CIR report also detailed how senior residential care facilities found to be liable for backpay and damages often used bankruptcy to avoid the legal consequence of wage theft and the obligation to fully make their workers whole.7 Please provide a detailed explanation of what WHD is doing, including working with state entities, to ensure that senior residential care facility operators found to have engaged in wage and hour violations are prevented from using the guise of bankruptcy to Shirk their obligations to make their workers whole. 2Jennifer Gollan, Elder Care Homes Rake In Profits As Legions Of Workers Earn A Pittance For Long Hours Of Care, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reportng (May 19, 2019contrast, in the 19403, WHD had 1,000 investigators when it was charged with protecting just one-seventh the size of today?s workforce. See Behind the Minimum Wage ight, A Sweeping Failure To Enforce The Law, POLITICO (Feb. 18, 2018), 409644. 6 FY2020 Congressional Budget Justi?cation, Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, 7 Jennifer Gollan, Elder Care Homes Rake In Pro?ts As Legions Of Workers Earn A Pittance For Long Hours Of Care, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting (May 19, 2019), The Honorable Cheryl Stanton August 2, 2019 Page 3 Thank you for your attention to this request. Please provide the requested information and documents as soon as possible, but no later than August 16, 2019. I also request a brie?ng on these matters after the above information and documents have been produced. If you have any questions, please contact Eunice lkene at eunice.ikene@mai1.house. gov and Cathy Yu at cathy.yu@mail.house. gov. Please direct all of?cial correspondence to the Committee?s Chief Clerk at Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to your reSponse. Sincerely, Robert C. ?Bobby? Scott Chairman