Officials at UAB Medicine did not pay overtime for extra hours nurses spent working through meal breaks and after their scheduled shifts to keep up with heavy workloads, according to a lawsuit filed recently in federal court.

The two named plaintiffs worked at UAB Medicine from 2018 to 2020. Danielle Larkin and Mia Neustein worked in the gynecology and oncology unit and Neustein also worked in the division of general medicine and infectious diseases.

During the time they worked at UAB, the hospital suffered from chronic understaffing and hired nurses with less than a year of experience, the lawsuit alleges. Managers assigned additional shifts every two or three weeks, creating workweeks that lasted more than 40 hours. The high turnover and inexperienced staff often created high workloads for more experienced nurses, forcing them to work late and miss mandated meal breaks, the filing states.

“Due to UAB’s chronic understaffing and volume of work, nurses were routinely forced to work through their meal break but were not paid because the (30) minute break was automatically deducted irrespective as to whether nurses took their breaks,” according to the lawsuit.

Federal law requires employers to pay hourly staff one-and-a-half times their normal rate if they exceed more than 40 hours of work a week. Managers at UAB Medicine knew that nurses often worked late and through meal breaks and did not pay them for the additional hours, the lawsuit said.

“Plaintiffs were unable to take short rest breaks throughout their workday in order to meet defendants’ work expectations,” according to the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs were subject to this treatment and observed that other nurses also routinely worked through their meal break and were not paid.”

The case was filed in February as a class action, and lawyers for the plaintiffs are recruiting other nurses who worked at UAB Medicine during the last three years to join the lawsuit.

Lawyers from UAB Medicine have not yet filed a response, but spokesman Tyler Greer provided a statement by email to AL.com.

“We value our employees and are committed to compensating them in compliance with applicable law,” Greer wrote. “We do not comment on pending litigation.”

Hospitals around the state struggled to fill nursing positions during the pandemic and many are still facing staffing shortages, according to a report commissioned by the Alabama Hospital Association. One of the plaintiffs, Neustein, worked at UAB during the first six months of the pandemic, according to the filing.