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REMINDER: Status and pay for work on VA accounts - Whistleblower

Posted: Dec 18, 2014

Since there have been postings in the past couple of days by MTs who are working on VA accounts who seemingly are being paid by the line, here is a reminder.

If you work on VA accounts, you must have employee status and be paid the Wage Determination Rate specific to that county. You can look up your specific WDR on the federal government's Wage Determinations Online website. The link is below.

Also, you must be paid for ALL work you perform, and this includes looking up information, phone and email communications necessary to perform your job, required training, etc. No exceptions. Period. You are an hourly employee. Not an independent contractor, not a volunteer, and not a slave.

If you are not being properly compensated, you can file an ANONYMOUS complaint with the DOL.

Stand up for yourselves and for what is right!

Thanks! - memt2

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for this information. I work on VA accounts and do training every year and have never been paid once for the time spent training. I also don't get paid for any email communications, looking up info between jobs for work, etc. Very interesting to learn this. Anyone else on VA accounts tired of this?

VA accounts - I wish

[ In Reply To ..]
I recently lost my long-time VA account to another MTSO, according to this board possibly an Indian company. In searching for a new position, I've contacted @ 10 VA MTSOs in the last few weeks and all pay significantly less than the prevailing wage noted in that link. Thank you for that link, but it asks questions that I'm not sure we know the answer to as far as what the contract date was, etc. Most of the salaries I'm seeing are around 7 cpl and most are unbelievably going back to IC. Some are counting VBC lines, some are counting VBC characters, some are still doing regular 65 character lines. I have not seen one that is the same. I'm being told by the recruiters that it all depends on the specific contract. The contract specifics aren't being published on the FBO page anymore, so I think we would have to contact the contract officer on each account to try to learn if it is the exact sort of contract specified on your link. Very good topic of discussion though, and I'm very grateful for your efforts.

It is not likely that your status and pay depend on the specific contract - Whistleblower

[ In Reply To ..]
Contracts cannot contain terms that violate the law.

According to the Department of Labor, a worker is an employee, rather than an independent contractor, if certain conditions exist. If a worker is an employee and is working on a federal government service contract, that employee must be paid the Wage Determination Rate according to the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act of 1965. In the past, lots of MTSOs that have VA contracts have claimed that their MTs were independent contractors or statutory employees and therefore the SCA did not apply to them. They paid their MTs by the line. However, when audited by the DOL, they were caught and were forced by the DOL to change the status of their "ICs" to employees and to pay them the WDR along with benefits.

Employers who are violating the law will often claim they are complying with it in order to preempt any challenge by a current or prospective worker. It is so critical for us to be aware of what the laws actually are. Just because a recruiter told you they can pay you cents per line on a VA contract does not make it so. It is not so.

hmm question - wondering

[ In Reply To ..]
I work for a company that "complies." When we report our hours, we do it as one single value as a total of all accounts we work on. The pay rates vary wildly. I've run the math and seems like being fast on a lower paying account reduces my pay.

Ok, this is an example how things work!
Account A: $16.00/hr
Account B: $12.00/hr

My lines:
Account A: 1000
Account B: 200

Say I spent 5 hours typing account A
and then help out account B and spent 5 minutes (I know unrealistic, but it demonstrates).

If I didn't type account B, I would have gotten: $80 ($16 x 5)
But I did type account B. Here's the math:
Total lines typed = 1200
Account A was 0.83 of those lines
Account B was 0.17 of those lines

My "hourly" pay for this pay period is:
Account A: $16 x 0.83 = $13.28 +
Account B: $12 x 0.17 = $ 2.04
=$15.32/hr

5 hours 5 minutes = 5.08 hours
$15.32/hr * 5.08 hours = $77.87

By helping out on this low paying account and being extremely good, I actually lost a couple dollars!

If anyone sees anything wrong with that logic, please do tell.

Calculation - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
If the rates are different, why are you submitting combined hours? If you worked 5 hours on account A, that comes to $80. If you worked 5 minutes on account B, that comes to $1. Your total pay should be $81. If your company is complying, they should be paying you as an hourly employee according to the rate for each account according to the time you spent on each account, not according to each account's percentage of total lines typed. The MTSO is being paid by the client according to the line. That has nothing to do with how the MTSO is supposed to be paying you.

that's what we're told to do - wondering

[ In Reply To ..]
We don't keep a tally of time for each account. Presumably, they had someone help them with compliance (setting up health insurance, keeping tracking of vacation, etc). It seems strange to me too.

What if you are told you have to make 190 to 200 lph - sm - JavaMT50

[ In Reply To ..]
and calculate your time based on your time typing, not looking up account information, cc information, spelling of a doctor's name, etc., only counting your time spent typing the report, how do you calculate that? It seems to me that in all actuality, unless you have a good bunch of dictators and a database at your fingertips with all of the doctors listed, you would be taking longer than 1 hour to make 190-200 lph.

VA Accounts - BeenThere

[ In Reply To ..]
This is interesting to know. No wonder when I worked a VA account, which did require a lot of research for which I was not paid, that when I would check my reports they were not under my name but the MTSO owner's name. They were probably raking in a nice profit off my back and just paying me per line as an IC.

VA Accounts - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
If you are dependent upon VA accounts, you should find something else, because how you are paid is the least of your worries. They have a huge contract with Nuance for front end SR, which is already being rolled out. The intent is for that to eliminate all outsourced MT. Soon.

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