Workers plan to sue Aramark over overtime pay

Aramark Corp., the huge Philadelphia food-service company, routinely cheats local stadium workers out of overtime pay while getting them to work through lunch and breaks without compensation, a union leader said yesterday.

"Wage theft occurs when workers are not paid all their wages, or when workers are denied overtime, or when wages aren't paid at all," said Lynne Fox, manager of the Philadelphia Joint Board, an affiliate of Workers United.

Fox and several Aramark workers are among plaintiffs who yesterday filed a summons in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court signaling their intention to follow it with a class-action lawsuit.

Damages could reach $2 million and involve 3,000 stadium workers at Citizens Bank Park, the Wachovia Center, and Lincoln Financial Field, estimated the workers' attorney, Joshua P. Rubinsky of Brodie Rubinsky P.C. in Center City.

Aramark spokeswoman Kristine Grow declined to comment beyond saying: "Aramark follows all federal, state, and local laws."

In April 2009, Aramark, without admitting wrongdoing, agreed to pay $154,320 plus attorneys' fees to settle a similar case involving 419 workers at the Convention Center.

Yesterday, using a pay stub as an exhibit, Rubinsky and Fox said Aramark designed its checks to make it difficult for workers to calculate the numbers of hours they had worked and the amount that was due.

"This means workers can't figure it out," Fox said. "Aramark knows it, and let me assure you, it's intentional."

Among the plaintiffs in the case was Aramark cook Jonathan Whatley, of Chester, assigned to the Boeing Co. cafeteria in the area.

From 2004 to 2008, when the Phillies had a home game, Whatley said, he finished his shift at Boeing and then hustled to the ballpark to serve the crowd there.

The same thing happened when the Eagles played at Lincoln Financial Field, he said. Aramark has the food-service contracts at both stadiums and at the Wachovia Center, as well as at Boeing.

Sometimes Whatley's stadium stints would amount to an extra 25 to 30 hours a week, but he said he never received overtime pay. Last year, company officials told him he couldn't get the extra hours because, he said, "we can't afford to pay you overtime."

He said his checks were confusing. "Unless you kept [track] yourself, you'd just get a money figure," he said, without a list of how many hours had been worked.

Rubinsky said Aramark routinely deducts a half hour's lunch pay from workers' checks, even though many workers don't, or can't, take a break when crowds are clamoring for their hot dogs.

"During the rush, you can't take your half hour," Rubinsky said. "That's just not reality." But, he said, workers should then be compensated.

When no-pay breaks are factored in, workers may earn below minimum wage, in violation of wage laws, he said.

On March 5, a similar lawsuit was filed in Common Pleas Court on behalf of the same workers by another union, Unite-Here. The Philadelphia Joint Board and Unite-Here both claim to represent these workers.

Meanwhile, Aramark faces National Labor Relations Board charges in Philadelphia for failing to forward union dues deducted from workers' paychecks to the Philadelphia Joint Board. Aramark has said it is not clear which of the two unions should receive the dues.