Enterprise Rent-A-Car (“Enterprise”) has just been sued by its employees for allegedly not getting paid on time. The proposed class action lawsuit claims that Enterprise, the largest car rental provider in the world, has failed to pay its New York employees on a weekly basis as required by the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”). This lawsuit seeks to recover pay for untimely wages and other damages for all current and former similarly situated drivers and manual labor positions (collectively, “Manual Workers”) for Enterprise in New York State.
Under NYLL, employees that can be considered manual workers should be paid weekly as opposed to bi-weekly. In this case, drivers for the company spent more than twenty-five percent of their shift completing physical tasks. These job duties mainly included transporting and cleaning vehicles. Enterprise has paid all its drivers and all other similarly situated workers on a bi-weekly basis despite them being manual workers. This means that they have allegedly failed to properly pay their employees their wages within seven calendar days after the week in which these wages were earned as required by the NYLL. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that Enterprise failed to supply its Manual Workers in New York with an accurate statement of wages with every payment of wages as required by NYLL. Due to their failure in providing these wage statement and the relevant and necessary information they provide, Manual Workers for the company in New York State are entitled to recover two hundred fifty dollars for each workday that they failed to receive accurate wage statements, or a total of five thousand dollars each, as well as reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs as provided for by NYLL.
If your job in New York State relies heavily on your manual labor and you are being paid bi-weekly, you may be owed significant wages. New York State protects hard-working employees in many labor focused industries in order to ensure timely pay. Some of these industries include, but are not limited to: construction, retail, and as seen in this matter, drivers for car rental companies. If you are unsure if you are entitled to timely pay in the state of New York, you should consider speaking with an employment lawyer. Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP offers a free and confidential consultation at (212) 300-0375 and also has additional helpful information regarding your rights here.
You can also view the filed complaint here.