Confluence Health settles $850,000 in employee ‘time-clock’ cheating claim

- Wenatchee, WA

The time-clock policy at Confluence Health in Wenatchee will soon pay a settlement to the company’s workers who said that they were cheated out of paid time.

The Wenatchee Valley’s largest healthcare provider ’s case started in March of 2018. A former staffer at Confluence Health’s Wenatchee branch stated that the chain of hospitals and clinics robbed their workers up to 22 minutes of paid time.

Confluence went into a class action lawsuit and claimed that the time-clock system rounded off minutes for employees who started earlier than their regular scheduled shifts, and docked them up to 15 minutes if they returned from a break. Even if the employee was one minute late.

During the lawsuit Confluence Health kept denying the claims, however mediators helped the plaintiff and the hospital firms agree on an $850,000 settlement amount, to cover the claims of more than 4,000 current and former hourly employees.

Chelan County Judge Lesley Allan signed off on the agreement last Friday. The total fee with admin costs and attorney fees costs the healthcare company a total of $612,500.

Any unclaimed funds will go to an in-house charity that assists Confluence employees who are in financial crisis. It is unsure if the unpaid cheating is affecting the Moses Lake location however it does affect employees in the Wenatchee metro locations.