Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating whether cleaners, porters, custodians, and trash-room employees assigned to D.C. condominium and apartment buildings were paid for all hours worked.
What is the issue?
Residential-building cleaners may be responsible for lobbies, elevators, hallways, stairwells, gyms, leasing offices, package rooms, bathrooms, loading areas, trash rooms, and outdoor spaces. Employees may also respond to spills, move-outs, resident complaints, and after-hours emergencies.
Some workers receive a flat daily or weekly amount even when occupancy, package volume, move-ins, or special events significantly increase the hours needed to complete the work. Others may be classified as independent contractors or franchise owners despite following schedules and instructions established by a property manager or cleaning company.
Workers may have experienced:
- A flat rate that did not cover all hours worked.
- Unpaid early-morning setup or end-of-day trash removal.
- Unpaid emergency cleanup calls.
- Working through meal periods because the building remained understaffed.
- Unpaid travel between several residential properties.
- No overtime when hours from different buildings were combined.
- Deductions for keys, uniforms, equipment, parking, transportation, or supplies.
- Being classified as an independent contractor despite having no independent business.
- No paid sick and safe leave.
- Missing wages when a property changed cleaning contractors.
Signs you may be affected
- You worked as a janitor, cleaner, custodian, porter, maintenance helper, or other building-services employee at a condominium or apartment building in Washington, D.C.
- You worked for a property management company, cleaning contractor, or staffing agency rather than directly for the property owner.
- You performed required cleaning, trash removal, or building maintenance before or after your scheduled shift 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 responding to building needs or completing assigned work.
Workers often know only the building address and company appearing on their paycheck. Those facts can be used to identify the property manager, principal contractor, and any labor suppliers.
If you performed janitorial, cleaning, custodial, porter, floor-care, trash-room, grounds, package-room, building-attendant, maintenance-support, or other facilities-service work at a D.C. condominium or apartment building and believe you were not paid correctly, please contact Migliaccio & Rathod LLP through the form below, by email at [email protected], or by telephone at (202) 470-3520.