Last week it was food industry leaders who were caught with their hands in employee tip jars. Now a group of construction workers from California, Arizona, and Nevada have filed a lawsuit charging that the major subcontractor that hired them—Building Materials Holding Corp., and several related subsidiaries—withheld overtime and other wage payments.
Pablo Nunez, 37, who served as a carpenter for one of the company’s subsidiaries for about three years, said he regularly worked 10 hours of overtime each week, but was paid for only five.
“They did that for years and years,” Nunez said through an interpreter, adding that complaints to his supervisors were ignored and that he was ultimately laid off.
The suit currently involves 14 plaintiffs, but if a judge grants it class-action status, that number could balloon into the thousands, according to the workers’ attorney, Glenn Rothner.
Building Materials Holding Corp. reported $2.3 billion in sales in 2007.
Comments