Federal regulators have recovered nearly $3.2 million in back wages and benefits for more than 3,100 subcontractors working at call centers in Florida and Oklahoma run by Irvine-based Alorica.
The employees provided enrollment, dental and vision benefits service to federal employees, retirees and their dependents.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found Alorica paid wages and benefits that were below the levels required in the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act.
Alorica pay levels vary depending on an employee’s specific job. But the legislation requires subcontractors performing services under contracts of more than $2,500 to pay workers no less than the prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits offered in the region where they work — or rates designated in a predecessor contractor’s collective bargaining agreement.
The pay shortages uncovered by the Labor Department occurred between January 2017 and March 2022.
Long Term Care Partners LLC, which now operates as FedPoint, contracted with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to provide benefits enrollment and other customer services for federal employees.
The Portsmouth, N.H. company, which engaged Alorica as a subcontractor, paid $3,193,839 in back wages and fringe benefits to 3,174 employees to resolve the violations. That figure was reached after Alorica agreed to audit its pay schedule in the contract and computed the wages and benefits owed to the workers.
Speaking late Wednesday, an Alorica representative said FedPoint’s contract with the company didn’t specify the correct wage and benefit levels to be paid to employees.
“We paid the workers according to the contract,” the Alorica representative said. “The correct wage determinations should have been included in the contract. This is very much a FedPoint issue and not an Alorica issue.”
Current and former Alorica employees who worked on the contract and believe they may have been impacted…
Read the full article here
