Andrew Strom, a longtime union lawyer and OnLabor.org contributor, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to break down a federal court ruling that left nearly 6,000 nursing home workers without a remedy for hours they worked but were never paid for.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia found that a nursing home company had systematically cheated workers out of wages for years, but then ruled that federal law did not cover a specific category of those unpaid hours, sending workers to state court to try to recover the rest on their own.

Strom explained what the ruling means for workers, why a long-standing government rule was not enough to protect them and why being in a union is one of the most effective ways to ensure workers never end up in that situation in the first place.

NOTE: Andrew Strom’s views on this program are his own.

• The U.S. Department of Labor sued a Pennsylvania nursing home company called Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services on behalf of nearly 6,000 workers after finding the company had paid workers for scheduled hours instead of actual hours, failed to pay for time worked during meal breaks and miscalculated overtime pay across 15 facilities for years. A federal judge awarded $35.8 million to the workers, but a federal appeals court reversed the portion of that award covering what lawyers call overtime gap pay, which refers to hours worked off the clock in weeks when a worker also clocked overtime, ruling that federal wage law simply does not cover those hours.
• One of the three judges on the appeals court panel, Judge Jane Roth, disagreed with the majority. She wrote a dissent arguing the ruling produces an unfair result, noting that under the majority's approach, a worker who is owed full pay for five hours of unpaid work may only be able to recover the overtime portion under federal law, leaving the straight-time portion for the worker to chase down separately in state court, a process most low-wage workers cannot realistically pursue on their own.
• The ruling is binding law in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, which means workers in those states who are paid for fewer hours than they actually worked in overtime weeks can no longer rely on the Department of Labor to recover all their unpaid wages in a single federal action. Strom said this is exactly the kind of problem a union contract prevents, because a union enforces workers' rights collectively through arbitration rather than leaving each worker to find their own attorney and fight alone.

When the Law Gets Chipped Away Without Anyone Noticing

Andrew Strom has been representing workers in legal fights for decades. He also writes about labor law at OnLabor.org, a blog run out of Harvard Law School, where he studied. His latest post tackles something that rarely makes headlines but matters enormously to working people: how federal judges quietly narrow the laws designed to protect workers, one ruling at a time, without Congress ever having to take a vote.

The case he discussed centers on a Pennsylvania nursing home company and thousands of workers who were not being paid for all the hours they actually worked.

What the Company Did and What the Court Found

Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services built up a chain of 15 nursing homes across Pennsylvania starting in 2014. Almost immediately, the U.S. Department of Labor began investigating how the company was paying its workers. By 2018, the DoL had seen enough and filed a lawsuit on behalf of nearly 6,000 employees, including nurses, aides and support staff who kept those facilities running.

The case went to trial in 2024. Strom explained that workers testified about what their jobs actually looked like: clocking in and out while a faulty time system missed punches, being paid for scheduled hours rather than hours actually worked, being required to work through lunch breaks while the system automatically deducted that time from their pay and receiving overtime calculations that left out shift bonuses and differentials they were owed. The judge who presided over the trial found the workers credible and the company's witnesses largely unconvincing. The ruling came back: $35.8 million owed to the workers.

Here Is Where It Gets Complicated

The nursing home company appealed to the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. A three-judge panel reviewed the case. Two of the judges agreed with the company on one key issue. The third judge, Jane Roth, disagreed and said so in a written dissent.

Strom said the issue is what lawyers call overtime gap pay. Here is the simplest way to understand it. Imagine a worker who is supposed to be paid for 38 hours in a given week. That worker actually works 43 hours, doing tasks before and after their shift, working through lunch and staying late. Everyone agrees the three hours above 40 must be paid at time and a half. But what about hours 38 and 39, the two hours the company simply did not pay for at all?

The Department of Labor said those two hours must be paid too. It has had a rule on the books since 1968 saying exactly that. The two judges said the federal wage law does not specifically address those hours and therefore federal law cannot be used to collect them. Strom said that if workers want those two hours paid, they have to go find a lawyer and sue in state court separately.

Why That Is a Real Problem

Strom said that for most workers at these nursing homes, filing a separate state court action is not a realistic option. These are not high-earning workers with personal legal teams. Finding a private attorney who knows wage law and is willing to take a small-dollar case is genuinely difficult. And even when state agencies exist to help, they vary significantly in their effectiveness.

The whole point of the DoL, Strom said, which was created when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, was to give workers one place to go when their employer cheated them. The federal government would stand behind them so they would not have to fight alone. This ruling essentially says: for this particular category of hours, you are on your own.

Judge Roth put it plainly in her dissent. Strom explained how she wrote that she did not know how to calculate the overtime rate the employer actually owed unless the employer had already paid all straight-time hours at the agreed wage. The majority's approach, she said, runs directly against the reason overtime pay exists in the first place: to make overworking people so expensive that employers would rather hire more workers than pile extra hours onto the ones they already have.

Employers Count on Workers Being Afraid

Strom connected the ruling to a broader pattern he has watched for years. Employers know that most workers are afraid to speak up about wage violations. A worker can be fired for almost any reason as long as the employer is clever about explaining it. Workers understand that reality, so they stay quiet and work the extra hours. They never see the money.

What makes a union different is that workers do not have to speak up alone. When workers are organized, they enforce their rights together. An employer cannot fire an entire workforce at once. Wage violations get caught and addressed through arbitration rather than years of litigation in multiple courts. Strom said the situation at Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services, with $35.8 million owed to nearly 6,000 workers, is exactly the kind of outcome a union contract prevents from getting that far.

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