Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating whether security officers assigned to Environmental Protection Agency buildings in Washington, D.C. were denied pay for briefings, screenings, equipment procedures, post-relief delays, meal periods, or overtime.
What is the issue?
Security officers assigned to a federal headquarters complex may rotate among entrances, loading areas, screening stations, garages, control rooms, and other posts. Officers may be required to report to a central location before receiving their assignments or traveling to the post where their scheduled shift formally begins.
Officers may also need to inspect magnetometers and x-ray equipment, receive radios and keys, review security bulletins, participate in drills, or remain after the end of a shift until a relief officer arrives.
An employer may violate wage law if it pays only for scheduled post time while excluding required activities performed before, during, or after the shift.
Security officers may have experienced:
- Unpaid pre-shift roll call.
- Unpaid travel from a central reporting area to an assigned post.
- Time spent obtaining radios, keys, firearms, or protective equipment without pay.
- Automatic meal deductions while monitoring a lobby or screening station.
- Having to respond to visitors or incidents during an unpaid meal period.
- Unpaid time waiting for post relief.
- Mandatory overtime paid at straight time.
- Payroll changes that reduced recorded hours to the posted schedule.
- Unpaid drills, training, recertification, or meetings.
- Overtime calculated separately for work at different EPA buildings.
Signs you may be affected
- You worked as an armed or unarmed security officer, patrol officer, dispatcher, or access-control officer at EPA Headquarters.
- You worked for a private security contractor rather than directly for the federal government.
- You performed required security duties before or after your scheduled shift without being paid for all of your time.
- You worked more than 40 hours in a week but did not receive proper overtime pay.
- Your employer automatically deducted meal breaks even though you remained responsible for monitoring your assigned post.
- You waited for relief, completed incident reports, or returned security equipment after your shift without compensation.
Workers do not need to know which company held the primary federal security contract. The EPA location, post assignment, badge, uniform, paycheck company, schedules, and supervisor names can help identify the responsible entities.
If you performed armed or unarmed security, access-control, screening, patrol, dispatch, control-room, badging, visitor-processing, or other protective-services work at an EPA building in Washington, D.C. and believe you were not paid for all required time, please contact Migliaccio & Rathod LLP through the form below, by email at [email protected], or by telephone at (202) 470-3520.