The plight of ten Chicago sanitation workers has come to a resolution as the U.S. Department of Labor secures a total of $60K in back wages and damages for overtime pay denials. According to the Department's news release, Green Maintenance Services Inc. and its owner Jan Jarosz have been ordered by a federal court to compensate the affected employees following a Fair Labor Standards Act consent judgment entered on December 27, 2024.
An investigation by the Wage and Hour Division uncovered that from April 2021 through April 2023 Green Maintenance Services and Jarosz had not compensated workers with the federally mandated time-and-a-half pay rate for overtime labor they committed errors overlooked nonpayment of a final paycheck for one worker; the judgment will see these errors amended with the company now designated to pay back wages in three monthly installments. In response to these findings, "This judgment puts those earned wages back in the hands of former employees shortchanged by Green Maintenance Services and Jarosz," stated Tom Gauza, the Wage and Hour Division District Director in Chicago.
The court's decision arrived after the Department of Labor filed a complaint arguing that provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act had been violated. Alongside financial restitution, the consent judgment includes measures to prevent future violations and requires a proper employee classification, addressing the company's prior misclassification of two sanitation workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The Chicago-based sanitation company has also agreed to reshape its employment practices to conform with federal law; therefore, this corrective action signals a shift toward compliance and an acknowledgment of the pivotal role labor rights play in maintaining fairness in the workplace, said the court records reveal that attorney Correll L. Kennedy from the department's Regional Office of the Solicitor in Chicago was responsible for litigating the case, underscoring the Department of Labor's ongoing commitment to ensuring fair compensation for all industry workers.
