Security, Maintenance and Janitorial Wage Laws

colorado mountainsSecurity guards and maintenance/janitorial workers often work long hours protecting and maintaining business facilities. Often, unscrupulous employers in these industries will cut corners on employee wages in order to increase their profit. As a result, thousands of workers in this industry have had and are having their wages stolen by their employer. The top wage violations in the security/maintenance/janitorial industry are:

  • Failing to pay workers overtime for all hours worked in excess of 12 per day or 40 per week. Even salaried workers usually are entitled to this overtime pay. To avoid overtime, employers in this industry often will illegally average hours worked over two weeks, pay overtime hours as “expense reimbursements”, or fail to combine hours worked at multiple sites.
  • Treating workers as independent contractors to avoid the cost of overtime, insurance and payroll taxes. Very few workers in this industry truly qualify as independent contractors.
  • “Shaving” or under-reporting worked hours to avoid paying for those hours. Often this takes the form of automatic deductions for meal/rest breaks that never were taken or that were less than thirty minutes of uninterrupted time.
  • Not paying workers for certain tasks performed before, during or after their regular shift such as driving to the job (or between jobs), employee meetings, training programs, putting on, taking off, cleaning or maintaining equipment or gear and paperwork. Often employers illegally claim that this work is “off the clock”.
  • Paying per diem instead of wages to avoid overtime pay.
  • Paying a flat daily or job rate without consideration of the number of hours worked and the requirement to pay overtime.
  • Making workers pay for their uniform (and dry-cleaning), whistle, weapon and/or other equipment.
  • Failing to provide meal and rest breaks.

If your employer is violating the security/maintenance/janitorial overtime pay laws, you (and other employees) may be entitled to thousands of dollars of back pay. Please contact us for a free and confidential case evaluation or simply to learn more about security/maintenance/janitorial workers and the overtime pay laws.