Janitors, Grocers Agree to Settlement
Three major supermarket chains have agreed to pay $22.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by janitors who said they were illegally classified as subcontractors and systematically underpaid at hundreds of Southern California stores.
The money will be split among at least 2,100 janitors who worked at Albertsons Inc., Ralphs Grocery Co. and Safeway Inc.’s Vons supermarkets from 1994 to 2001. Payouts will range from about $4,500 to $9,300, depending on where and for how long someone worked, attorneys said in court. A claims administrator will handle the payouts.
“You don’t do this for the money. You do this because of the abuse. And that is real abuse,” said Jesus Lopez, 29, a former Vons janitor, who said he scrubbed floors seven nights a week for five years, sometimes for 12 hours a night.
Attorneys representing the supermarkets declined to comment. Under the terms of the settlement, attorneys from both sides, as well as the plaintiffs who originally filed the suit, were barred from speaking publicly about the deal.
The settlement, which ends a five-year case, was to have been finalized in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. Judge Percy Anderson put off the final hearing until late February because Albertsons had failed to post notices in its stores seeking class members, as it had been ordered to do earlier.
The posting could add more janitors to the settlement but won’t increase the pool of money. Seven plaintiffs were named in the original suit, filed on their behalf by human rights attorneys and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. After the case won class certification, attorneys searched for former janitors through radio and newspaper ads, union mailings and travel to Puebla, a state in central Mexico that was home to many of the janitors.
Janitors employed by the supermarkets worked for a national contracting firm, Building One Service Solutions, which in turn used more than 200 subcontractors providing the janitors. The subcontractors claimed that the workers were independent contractors, although they followed a schedule and didn’t own their equipment. (Building One has since filed for bankruptcy protection.)
The supermarkets also disavowed responsibility for the janitors, although store managers often directed their work. The lawsuit sought to prove a direct link between the supermarkets and the janitors, a difficult legal challenge.
Three years ago, the supermarkets agreed to bring janitors up to union wages, either by hiring them directly or hiring union contractors.
Lilia Garcia, director of the Maintenance Cooperative Trust Fund, a union-funded group that helped uncover the wage-and-hour abuses five years ago, said the practice continued in retailing. The trust fund recently negotiated a $2-million settlement with Target Corp. for similar abuses, she said.
“This is still going on wherever they can get away with it,” said Raymond Burruel, an organizer with the Service Employees International Union, which represents some supermarket janitors.
