03/19/2014 (press release: KGEmployment)
A newly filed complaint asserts that food court service workers at the federally-owned Union Station in Washington, D.C. have been chronic victims of wage theft totaling more than $3 million in unpaid earnings, reports San Francisco wage and hour attorney Eric Grover of Keller Grover LLP.
The official complaint was filed Wednesday, January 15, 2014, and will likely spark an investigation by the Department of Labor.
If the Department of Labor launches a formal investigation into the complaint, this will mark the second recent inquiry into wage and hour violations by federal contractors at a federal building in the Washington area. The Department of Labor has been investigating a similar claim filed by Good Jobs Nation at the Ronald Regan Building since August, ThinkProgress.com reported.
The Union Station food court workers assert that they have been compensated with wages far below the federally mandated minimum hourly rate. They also were forced to work “60 to 70-hour work-weeks without payment of overtime,” the complaint says. The workers maintain that they were shorted a quarter of their yearly pay on average, which totaled “almost $10,000 per year.”
“Its unfortunate to see that wage theft is occurring in our federal lawmakers’ backyard and right underneath their noses, yet there aren’t tougher restrictions being considered to protect our workers from this apparently rampant problem in our country,” says Grover. “Wage theft can occur in any occupation, which is why workers need to stay vigilant to ensure they are not being taken advantage of. If you are a victim of wage theft, chances are that your employer is also treating other employees similarly, and they are suffering the same fate. Contacting a wage and hour lawyer to advise you about the best way to address the problem could be the first step towards recovering what you are rightfully owed under the law.
Information sourced from:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/15/3168801/food-court-wage-theft-government/
