DOL investigating unpaid wages claim from Merrymeeting employees
Approximately 180 employees who were abruptly left without work following the closure of the Brunswick-based Merrymeeting Behavioral Health Associates are scrambling to make sense of what to do next.
As reported early last week, the mental health care provider told employees on March 28 that the company would no longer be seeing clients on April 8, and would close altogether on April 22, due to changes in reimbursement rates for clients with MaineCare coverage.
But before the week was over, Merrymeeting abruptly shuttered on April 1 — and employees were told that they wouldn’t be reimbursed for hours worked.
One of those employees now without work is Jacob Pelletier, a medical student who told the Bangor Daily News that he received a phone call from his team leader at Merrymeeting on Friday while he was driving in his car with a client, informing Pelletier that he was suddenly without work.
“She told me to lie to the client and tell them there’s an emergency, then take them home and end my day,” Pelletier told the BDN on Wednesday.
Pelletier is now without work, and short $1,400 that the health care provider has yet to pay him — a paycheck that he isn’t expecting to receive, as he has yet to hear from any Merrymeeting representatives since receiving that phone call.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Labor said that they have been getting the same silent treatment from Merrymeeting officials, something that has been preventing them from assisting those who were without work by providing unemployment benefit applications and job search information.
The Wage and Hour Division of the Bureau of Labor Standards is currently investigating displaced workers’ allegations of unpaid work. Those workers could be paid for up to two weeks of back wages if the department determines Merrymeeting has not paid, and is not likely to pay, its workers.
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