Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating whether janitors and building-service employees who cleaned U.S. Secret Service facilities in Washington, D.C. received all required hourly wages, fringe benefits, overtime, and compensation for security-related delays.
What is the issue?
Janitors who clean secure federal facilities may be employed by an outside cleaning company under a federal service contract. Depending on the contract and employee classification, workers may be entitled to specified wage rates and health-and-welfare fringe benefits in addition to ordinary minimum-wage protections.
Work at a secure facility may also require employees to pass through screening, wait for an escort, obtain a temporary badge, check equipment, or travel from a controlled entrance to the cleaning area. Required time may be unpaid when the time clock is located beyond the security checkpoint.
This investigation seeks information from cleaners about their actual work locations, paycheck companies, hourly rates, benefits, and timekeeping procedures. It does not assume that every contractor serving U.S. Secret Service facilities engaged in unlawful conduct.
Janitorial workers may have experienced:
- An hourly rate below the applicable federal contract rate.
- Missing health-and-welfare or fringe-benefit payments.
- Unpaid security-screening or badge-processing time.
- Waiting without pay for an escort or access to a restricted area.
- Unpaid supply collection, equipment setup, or end-of-shift work.
- Automatic meal deductions during uninterrupted overnight assignments.
- Overtime calculated using a rate lower than the worker’s required regular rate.
- Hours split among facilities or payroll companies.
- Unlawful deductions for uniforms, equipment, badges, or background checks.
- Incomplete wage statements that did not identify fringe benefits.
Signs you may be affected
- You worked as a janitor, cleaner, custodian, porter, floor technician, or other building-services employee at a U.S. Secret Service facility.
- You worked for a cleaning or facilities contractor rather than directly for the federal government.
- You performed required cleaning, 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 the contract wage, required fringe benefits, or all hours you worked.
- Your employer automatically deducted meal breaks even though you continued performing assigned duties.
Workers may know the facility, entrance, work area, cleaning supervisor, badge, or uniform but not the principal federal contractor. The contracting chain can be determined through procurement and employment records.
If you performed janitorial, cleaning, custodial, porter, floor-care, sanitation, grounds, maintenance-support, trash-removal, or other facilities-service work at a U.S. Secret Service facility in Washington, D.C. and believe you were underpaid, please contact Migliaccio & Rathod LLP through the form below, by email at [email protected], or by telephone at (202) 470-3520.