TL;DR: During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses at the Indian Health Service worked grueling overtime to save lives. When they asked for their legally earned pay, the government used a 75-year-old administrative loophole to deny them.
A recent court ruling has now blessed this practice, allowing the state to benefit from “unwritten” labor while shielding the treasury from paying for it. Read on to see how the system is designed to prioritize “administrative convenience” over the survival of its essential workers.
Working for Free in a Pandemic 🏥
Jillian Lesko and her fellow nurses were pushed to the breaking point whilst working at the peak of the global health pandemic. Tasked with managing a flood of patients at the Indian Health Service, these professionals stayed late, skipped breaks, and responded to urgent alerts long after their shifts ended. They did this because patients would have died otherwise. Their supervisors watched them work, accepted the labor, and reaped the benefits of a functioning hospital.
But when the time came to settle the bill, the government pointed to a blank sheet of paper.
Because no manager had signed a specific “overtime authorization form” before the emergency work happened, the government was thus able to claim the work (legally speaking that is) never existed.
This is the reality of modern labor exploitation: the work is mandatory, but the pay is “procedural.”
A Systemic Theft of Time 🕒
The core of the misconduct lies in a cynical interpretation of federal pay laws. While the law says workers must be paid for hours “officially ordered or approved,” the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) created a rule decades ago stating that “ordered or approved” must mean “in writing.” This allowed managers to “induce” overtime by creating workloads that are impossible to finish in eight hours, without ever putting the order on paper.
| Date | Event | Outcome |
| 2020-2021 | Jillian Lesko works as a nurse at Indian Health Service during COVID-19. | Nurses are “stretched to their limits” and work daily unpaid overtime. |
| 2022 | Lesko files a class-action lawsuit for unpaid overtime, night, and holiday pay. | The government moves to dismiss, citing the lack of written authorization. |
| March 2023 | Court of Federal Claims dismisses the overtime counts. | The court rules that “unwritten” orders do not count as “official” orders. |
| Dec 12, 2025 | The Federal Circuit (En Banc) issues a final ruling. | The court upholds the “writing requirement,” permanently barring pay for “induced” labor. |
The Agency as Judge and Jury 🏛️
This case exposes a classic failure of accountability. Under neoliberal governance, agencies like the OPM are given the power to “fill in the details” of laws passed by Congress. Instead of using this power to protect workers, they use it to create hurdles that protect the government’s budget. By narrowing the definition of “work” to only that which is documented in advance, the agency has effectively legalized wage theft. Even after recent Supreme Court rulings aimed to limit agency overreach, the courts continue to allow these “housekeeping” rules to strip away fundamental worker rights.
Profit-Maximization at the Expense of Public Health 📈
In a system that treats public services like a lean corporation, the “profit” is the budget surplus or cost-saving achieved by understaffing. By refusing to pay for “induced” overtime, the government incentivizes managers to run hospitals on “ghost hours”. Ghost hours are labor that’s necessary for patient safety but invisible to the payroll. This creates a dangerous environment where nurses are exhausted and exploited, directly threatening the quality of care provided to vulnerable communities.
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Fallout 🌍
The “Social” and “Governance” failures here are staggering.
- Worker Exploitation: Registered nurses were required to transmit patient data, respond to alerts, and maintain standards of care that exceeded their scheduled hours.
- Public Health Risk: When essential staff are overworked and underpaid, the risk of medical error increases. The system prioritizes the “formality” of a signature over the “fact” of a nurse’s presence at a patient’s bedside.
- Community Impact: The Indian Health Service serves some of the most marginalized populations. Undermining the workforce in these facilities destabilizes healthcare infrastructure in regions that need it most.
This Is the System Working as Intended ⚙️
We often view these cases as “accidents” or “legal glitches.” In reality, this is the logical conclusion of a system that prioritizes administrative functionality over human well-being. The law court’s decision to uphold the “writing requirement” ensures that the state can continue to extract maximum value from its employees with minimum financial liability. It’s a strategic use of bureaucracy to maintain a cheap, compliant workforce.
This is a deeply serious challenge to systemic imbalance. Jillian Lesko’s claims were not based on a misunderstanding of the rules, but rather on a fundamental truth: work performed is work that must be paid. While the court ultimately sided with the bureaucracy, the documented evidence of “induced” labor highlights a massive ethical breach in how the United States treats its most essential public servants.
🙋 FAQ
Q: Can my boss make me work for free if they don’t “order” it in writing?
A:For many federal employees, this “writing requirement” is a legal shield for the employer against you guys (the workers). Always get your overtime directives in an email or text message since those can be referenced in future legal challenges.
Q: Why did the court allow this?
A: The court ruled that Congress gave the agency (OPM) the “discretion” to decide how overtime is approved. They viewed the writing requirement as a “practical” way to avoid disputes, even if it results in workers losing pay for work they actually did.
Q: How can we prevent this in the future?
A: 3 ways actually
- Legislative Action: Demand that Congress pass the “Federal Employee Pay Fairness Act” to explicitly eliminate the writing requirement and align federal rules with the private sector. Yes, Congress prefers to
- Collective Action: Unionize. Collective bargaining agreements can often override these restrictive administrative rules.
- Transparency: Use Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to expose how much “uncompensated” labor is being performed at specific agencies.
💡 Explore Corporate Misconduct by Category
Corporations harm people every day — from wage theft to pollution. Learn more by exploring key areas of injustice.
- 💀 Product Safety Violations — When companies risk lives for profit.
- 🌿 Environmental Violations — Pollution, ecological collapse, and unchecked greed.
- 💼 Labor Exploitation — Wage theft, worker abuse, and unsafe conditions.
- 🛡️ Data Breaches & Privacy Abuses — Misuse and mishandling of personal information.
- 💵 Financial Fraud & Corruption — Lies, scams, and executive impunity.
