Lawsuit: State of Arkansas, Dept. of Human Services Improperly Docked Hourly Pay

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Two former hourly paid resident care assistants have filed a proposed class and collective action against the state of Arkansas and its Department of Human Services—the overseer of the Jonesboro Human Development Center and Conway Human Development Center, two of five state-managed training facilities for individuals with developmental disabilities—alleging they and similarly situated workers were not paid proper wages. The plaintiffs claim they regularly worked more than 40 hours per week without proper overtime pay and often worked up to three hours each week for which they received no compensation at all.

The allegedly unpaid wages, the case claims, stem from the defendants’ common policy of docking hourly employees’ pay for 15 minutes of time if they arrived more than five minutes late for shifts, but were still present at work within the first 15 minutes of said shifts.

“If [the plaintiffs] and other similarly situated hourly employees arrived more than fifteen (15) minutes after their scheduled start time but were still within the first thirty (30) minutes of their shift, they would be docked for thirty (30) minutes, regardless of what time they arrived,” the case alleges. “This was also true if [the plaintiffs] and other similarly situated hourly employees arrived between thirty (30) to forty-five (45) minutes late, and so on.”