NEWS ITEM

$6.5 Million Living Wage Ordinance Settlement for 500+ Southern California Laundry Workers Is Largest Ever

Settlement to Provide More than 90% of Back Wages Sought

December 17, 2009 – A $6.5 million settlement with Cintas Corporation will provide back wages, interest, and penalties to more than 500 laundry workers employed by Cintas in Southern California. Plaintiffs’ class action alleged that Cintas violated the City of Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance and the City’s contracts with Cintas by not paying its workers the “living wage” required by the City. This settlement is believed to be the largest recovery ever for workers under a local living wage ordinance.

Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys Michael Rubin, Eve Cervantez, and Eileen Goldsmith represented the class of laundry workers.

Los Angeles’ Living Wage Ordinance requires certain service companies who contract with the City to pay a “living wage” to all employees who work on the contract. The Ordinance designates the annually adjusted living wage rate, which is designed to improve the workers’ standard of living and to improve the quality of services provided to the City by its contractors.

The workers’ lawsuit alleged that Cintas failed to comply with the Ordinance between 2000 to 2004, when it had a contract to provide freshly laundered uniforms and other items to the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power. In 2006, the Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s denial of class certification and ordered certification of a class of laundry workers at Cintas’ Whitter, Pico Rivera, and Ontario plants that serviced the Department of Water & Power contract. In January 2009, after another appeal, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Ordinance applies to any worker who spends any of his or her time working on a covered contract with the City, and the Court held unenforceable a regulation adopted by a City administrative office that had purported to limit application of the Living Wage Ordinance to workers who spent 20 hours or more per month on covered contract work.

The settlement will give class members more than 90% of the back wages they sought, plus prejudgment interest and statutory penalties. A portion of the statutory penalties will be paid to the State of California under the Labor Code Private Attorney General Act, to be used for labor law enforcement.

The settlement follows the resolution of another case, Amaral v. Cintas Corporation, 163 Cal.App.4th 1157 (2008), in which the California Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court’s ruling, on summary judgment, that Cintas had violated the City of Hayward’s Living Wage ordinance. In the earlier case, Altshuler Berzon LLP also represented the class of more than 200 Northern California Cintas workers. Those workers were awarded the full amount of backpay requested, plus prejudgment interest and penalties, totaling more than $1.4 million.

A copy of a press release concerning the settlement in the Los Angeles case, Ayon v. Cintas Corporation, is linked below.

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