Hotel in Boston Hit with Unpaid Wages Lawsuit

Boston, MAAn Unpaid Wages lawsuit filed as a class action in Boston claims that employee time cards were altered, suggesting that employees commenced and concluded work at times that differed from actual time worked, or so the lawsuit alleges.

This is yet another in a series of off the clock work lawsuits, alleging that employees are either mandated to continue performing work outside the bounds of their schedules without pay, have found their time cards to be altered, or are mandated to don and doff uniforms and other protective gear on their own time, rather than on the employer’s dime.

In Boston, Massachusetts the defendant in this most recent off the clock work class action is the parent company of the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel located in downtown Boston.

According to a report in the Boston Business Journal (08/15/16), hotel management instructed supervisors to alter employee time cards to reflect fewer hours worked. The lead plaintiff in the Boston unpaid wages claim, Lou Saban, claims that hotel management undertook the practice in order to improve the financial performance of the hotel, or so it is alleged.

Saban is identified as having worked in the hotel as a bartender stationed at the OAK Long Bar + Kitchen, a restaurant located in the hotel. A supervisor to whom Saban reported, is said to have shared with the plaintiff that hotel management had instructed her to shave hours from time cards after employees at clocked in, and clocked out for the day. This was allegedly undertaken by supervisors and payroll administrators through a practice of actually altering the clock in-and-out times, or simply reducing the number of hours worked on employee time cards without telling the employees involved.

Saban, who no longer works for the defendant, describes in his off the clock work claim that on one particular day he had clocked in at 10:07am, later clocking out at 7:05pm. His lawsuit interprets those times as reflecting a clock time of just under nine hours. Thus, his clock time should have rightly reflected eight hours and 58 minutes of work.

The plaintiff claims in his Unpaid Wages lawsuit that his clock time was later altered to reflect a start time of 10:30am. He was paid for 8.5 hours. The unpaid wages claim also asserts that the supervisor who tipped Saban off about the practice did not engage in the time card skullduggery, and thus was reprimanded by hotel management, or so it has been alleged.

Allegations of off the clock work are sometimes brought as a donning and doffing lawsuit, suggesting that employers mandate that employees wear protective gear while actively on the job. Such gear can take several minutes to put on and, subsequently remove. Such donning and doffing often occurs several times a day - in the morning, for meal breaks (depending upon the environment), bathroom breaks and upon the conclusion of a shift. Cumulatively, this can add a half hour or more to an employee’s work day for which plaintiffs in donning and doffing lawsuits assert they should be paid, given that such gear is mandated by the employer for the job at hand.

In a week, this can add up to several hours for which an employee should be paid overtime wages, or so plaintiffs claim.

In Boston, Saban is bringing his Unpaid Wages lawsuit with the help of an unpaid wages attorney on behalf of all hourly-paid employees of the Fairmont Copley Hotel who worked at the facility for the previous three years. The class action lawsuit alleges that changes to time cards are a violation of state laws in Massachusetts.

The owner of the hotel is identified by The Boston Globe (08/20/16) as FelCor Lodging Trust Inc. based in Irving, Texas. Case information was not available.