$3.2M in wages recovered
Alorica subcontractor allegedly did not pay 3,100 of its call center workers the going rate
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, New Hampshire, 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 can contact the Wage and Hour Division and are encouraged to use the Workers Owed Wages search tool to learn if they are owed back wages recovered by the division.
Employees with questions can send them to whdvm.manchnhalorica@dol.gov.
Alorica made headlines in August 2018 when it agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle charges that its customer service representatives were “openly propositioned for sex, leered at and touched by supervisors and co-workers.”
That lawsuit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said some 44 employees at Alorica call centers in Fresno and Clovis were subject to the abuse.
Alorica has about 100,000 employees in 16 countries.