Nearly 400 highway repair workers employed by the Department of Transportation are suing the city, alleging they aren’t being paid for overtime.
The lawsuit filed last Monday in the Southern District Court for New York claims that the city’s timekeeping system, CityTime, only pays employees for their regular scheduled hours, not the times that they punch in and out of work. The lawsuit argues that the city’s practices violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which states that employees can recover unpaid overtime wages for twice what they’re owed.
DOT spokesperson Scott Gastel told Gothamist that the city is reviewing the case.
Highway repair crew leader Jonathan Cummings is among the lawsuit’s 383 plaintiffs.
A Nassau County resident, Cummings serves as a crew leader for the Department of Transportation’s concrete team, where he’s tasked with repairing sidewalk corners and keeping them accessible for visually impaired pedestrians or those using wheelchairs. His workday runs from 5 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. five days a week, and it’s not uncommon for highway repair crews to work through breaks.
“A lot of times we work straight through lunch,” Cummings said. “That was part of the reason I signed up for [the lawsuit].”
Cummings is a shop steward for the union Local 983, which represents many of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.
Shanee Bujarski, another plaintiff on the lawsuit, wasn’t thrilled about not getting paid for the additional work.
“I damn sure wasn’t too happy to hear that I wasn’t getting paid overtime when I was supposed to,” he said.
According to Diana Nobile, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, it’s unclear how much the city could owe the DOT workers in overtime. That’s because the payroll records are held exclusively by the city, the lawsuit alleges.
Nobile said the city’s actions are “a very clear violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
The plaintiffs “come in before their paid time, gather their equipment,…
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