CWS 3.0: December 23, 2014

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Apple, port firm hit by temp worker wage-and-hour suits

Staffing buyers and their providers face more class action wage-and-hour lawsuits with two new lawsuits filed this month. The first was filed against Apple and a staffing firm by a $100-an-hour IT consultant. The second suit was filed by warehouse workers against a warehouse operator and staffing firms at the Port of Los Angeles and could involve hundreds of workers.

Apple suit. The Apple lawsuit claims Systems Integration Solutions Inc., a Walnut Creek, Calif.-based staffing firm, didn’t pay a class of IT consultants for all hours worked or overtime. It claims the staffing firm paid only for hours approved by the client, but the nature of the work called for them to work more than eight hours a day and 40 hours a week. Defendants also had a policy of encouraging plaintiff and other class members to skip meal breaks, the suit claims.

Named plaintiff in the Apple lawsuit is Chau Xu, who worked at Apple from March 3, 2013, to Dec. 20, 2013, with a regular rate of pay of $100 per hour.

The Apple lawsuit, brought in state court, argues “Apple knows, or should know, how many hours plaintiff and other subclass members are regularly working during the class period because subclass members perform work for Apple in Apple’s offices, log onto Apple’s computer systems in order to perform work, and receive work instructions and directions from Apple personnel.”

The Apple lawsuit seeks to represent all people employed by Systems Integration Solutions who were paid on an hourly basis within the four years prior to the filing of the complaint this month.

Warehouse suit. The second lawsuit targets California Cartage Company Inc., a firm that operates warehouses in Wilmington, Calif., for goods traveling through the Port of Los Angeles for retailers such as Lowe’s, Kmart, Amazon and Sears, according to court records. The suit also names as defendants staffing firms Staffing Systems Inc., SSI Staffing Inc. and AMR Staffing Inc.

It seeks to represent hundreds of workers — many recent immigrants — according to the lawsuit.

It claims workers are owed a living wage under Los Angeles’ “Living Wage Ordinance” of at least $11.03 per hour with medical benefits or $12.28 per hour without benefits and should receive 12 compensated days off per year for sick leave, vacation or personal necessity. However, a vast majority of workers received little more than minimum wage, the complaint in the lawsuit says.

The suit also claims workers were required to work past their shifts without pay and, other times, sent home without pay after reporting for work. It claims California Cartage had a duty to protect workers from wage violations.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the lawsuit could involve millions of dollars.

These two wage and hour lawsuits follow other such suits that have targeted staffing buyers and staffing suppliers.

Google was sued last month in federal court claiming it misclassified a contingent worker as an independent contractor.

However, a class action lawsuit brought by a contingent attorney claiming unpaid overtime against a staffing buyer and staffing supplier was dismissed in September by a federal judge in New York.

The Apple and California Cartage lawsuits were filed in state court. However, the Administrative Office of the US Courts reported Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits in federal courts rose by 5 percent in the federal fiscal year ended March 31, 2014, compared to the previous federal fiscal year.