Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating whether cafeteria workers employed by food-service contractors at D.C. public schools were paid for all preparation, service, cleanup, training, and travel time.
What is the issue?
School cafeteria employees often perform substantial work before students arrive and after the final meal is served. Duties may include receiving deliveries, preparing food, setting up serving lines, recording temperatures, cleaning equipment, completing paperwork, and closing the kitchen.
Wage problems can arise when the payroll schedule covers only the meal-service period and excludes necessary opening or closing work. Workers assigned to more than one school may also lose pay for travel between locations.
Workers may have experienced:
- Working before the scheduled clock-in time to prepare breakfast.
- Unpaid cleanup after the scheduled shift ended.
- Being told not to record more than a preset number of hours.
- Skipped or interrupted meal periods during short-staffed shifts.
- Unpaid travel between D.C. public schools.
- Missing overtime when hours from different schools were not combined.
- An hourly rate below the rate required by the applicable school food-service contract.
- Unpaid mandatory training or certification time.
Signs you may be affected
- You worked as a cafeteria worker, food service worker, cook, cashier, dishwasher, or kitchen employee at one of the D.C. Public Schools.
- You worked for a food-service contractor rather than directly for DCPS.
- You performed food preparation, setup, or cleanup before clocking in or after clocking out without being paid.
- You worked more than 40 hours in a week but did not receive proper overtime pay.
- Your paycheck did not include all hours worked or the wages required under your employment agreement or applicable law.
- You worked through unpaid meal breaks because you were responsible for serving students or cleaning the cafeteria.
Workers may know only the school name and the company shown on their uniform or paycheck. Contract records can be used to identify the food-service prime contractor and any staffing subcontractors.
If you worked in food preparation, meal service, dishwashing, sanitation, stocking, delivery, kitchen management, or another cafeteria-support role at a DCPS school and believe you were not paid for all hours or the correct contract rate, please contact Migliaccio & Rathod LLP through the form below, by email at [email protected], or by telephone at (202) 470-3520.