Summary:
On Friday, October 30, 2020, Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP filed a class action complaint against Enterprise Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Enterprise Rent-A-Car (“Enterprise”) for unpaid wages. The car rental services provider has allegedly failed to pay its New York based employees on time. This lawsuit seeks to recover untimely wage compensation and other damages for all similarly situated drivers and manual labor positions (collectively, “Manual Workers”) who work or have worked as manual workers for Enterprise in New York State to remedy violations under the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”).
Drivers for the company spent more than twenty-five percent of their shift completing physical tasks. These job duties included, but were not limited to:
• transporting of fleet cars and vans to and from rental locations, as well as navigating written directions.
• driving and delivering vehicles locally or out of area as needed, following all rules of the road.
• delivering customers and vehicles to appropriate destination in a safe and courteous manner.
• riding with or following another driver to drop off vehicle(s) or picking up multiple vehicles.
• organizing travel route and ensuring vehicle paperwork is accurate and timely.
• communicating via 2-way radio or cellular phone.
• cleaning vehicles.
• performing miscellaneous job-related duties as assigned
At all relevant times, Enterprise has compensated all its drivers and all other similarly situated workers on a bi-weekly basis. Despite being manual workers, the company has allegedly failed to properly pay these employees their wages within seven calendar days after the end of 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, listing relevant information such as dates of work covered by that payment of wages, rates of pay, number of hours worked per week, gross and net wages, deductions, allowances, etc. Due to these violations of the NYLL, Manual Workers for the company in New York State are entitled to statutory penalties of 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.
New York State protects hard-working employees that work in industries that rely heavily on their manual labor. If you work for an industry, such as car rental companies or in retail, you should be paid every week as opposed to biweekly. If you are unsure if you fall into this category, speaking with an employment lawyer could be helpful. 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.