Charities being sued for not paying out overtime
MIAMI (AP) – Ana Siberio worked for six months as an assistant house manager at Ronald McDonald House Charities of South Florida.
She said it wasn’t unusual to work seven days a week at the nonprofit charity that provides housing for sick children and their families during medical treatment.
The Miami woman estimates she regularly worked about 70 hours a week and is owed more than $20,000 in unpaid overtime for the job she left in April.
When she asked to come in an hour later to take her son to the doctor, she was denied her request.
“She told her supervisors that she wanted to start clocking in and out, and they told her that she was not allowed to,” said Michael Scheve, Siberio’s attorney at the Shavitz Law Group in Boca Raton. “She did enjoy her job, just not the OT and treatment by management.”
Siberio filed a lawsuit against the charity Sept. 10 in Miami federal court, alleging overtime violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Altruism may be a ticket into heaven, but it also may lead nonprofits that flout federal labor standards for nonexempt employees to the courthouse door.
In the troubled economy, charities and nonprofits have been hit hard. Donations are down, staff has been cut, and some corners are being cut.
Michael Casey, managing partner of Epstein Becker & Green’s Miami office, said major national nonprofits like the Boy Scouts of America and United Way run sophisticated operations similar to big corporations.
“The problem hits the smaller, local nonprofits just like it hits the smaller employers,” he said. “The dismal economy has caused a lot of employers to fudge quite a bit on the wage-and-hour front. They will tell some employees, ‘We can’t afford the OT, but we need the work done.’ The law says you can’t do that.”