SCRANTON, Pa. -- Employees of an at-home health care provider are claiming they haven't been paid in weeks, and answers from the company aren't coming easily.
After missing paychecks for the third week in a row, some longer employees of Sweet Home Healthcare have been hearing rumors that the company is shutting down or already has.
We went inside the office earlier in the day. Employees were there working, but the manager told us she couldn't comment on the issue.
Workers don't just want their paychecks, they want answers.
It hasn't been a great start to the new year for Emily Kowalski from Plains Township. This is the third Friday in a row that she hasn't received a paycheck from her now former employer, Sweet Home Healthcare in Scranton.
"It started on December 27, two days after Christmas, that I didn't get my first paycheck," Kowalski said.
Kowalski says she's owed for 100 hours of work, and she's not alone. The same issue has been reported at the company's Harrisburg and Philadelphia locations.
"From everything that I have gathered, and read, and heard, here and there, no one's getting paid now," said Kowalski.
Kowalski was a direct care worker for Sweet Home for four years. She takes care of her mom, who has multiple sclerosis. Kowalski now provides care through a different company, but she's worried about the other patients whose caregivers may have stopped showing up.
"She wouldn't be able to get up and go to the bathroom and make food for herself if I wasn't here. All of those people, I'm sure, are angry too, calling in like, 'hey, where's my caregiver at?'"
Kowalski showed us emails and text alerts from the company to its employees. The first one, two days after Kowalski's first missed paycheck, says that the paycheck delay was due to an internal malfunction.
Another email says employees will receive the missed paycheck the following week, on January 3. That didn't happen.
The most recent email says, "Unfortunately, we were not able to process payroll for 1/3/20. We are still working to get this done ASAP."
Now, Kowalski has filed a complaint for lost wages with the state Labor Law Compliance Office.
"My kids' birthdays are in the fall, and then Christmas, so it's like you push off bills here and there, and now you're not getting a paycheck to pay back that, and tax time is coming. So W2s need to be coming, and now I'm concerned that we won't get those."
Calls to the corporate office in Philadelphia went unanswered today.
The state Department of Labor and the Department of Human Services issued a statement saying that the Wolf administration is closely monitoring the situation.
The statement also says that the administration is working to make sure all patients are being cared for, even if it's not by Sweet Home Healthcare.