Employer Violations Dashboard

Largest Settlement with the New York City Commission on Human Rights (“CCHR”) in 2024

Alpha Wave Global LP, a NYC-based global finance company,[6] settled with the New York City Commission on Human Rights (“CCHR”) for $85,000 for wrongful termination. In the largest employment-related case for the agency in 2024, Alpha Wave Global fired an employee after the employee complained to the company about experiencing discrimination based on race and sexual orientation. The company settled with CCHR, agreeing to pay the employee for emotional distress and back wages resulting from the unlawful retaliatory firing, and it agreed to participate as a company in trainings on the NYC Human Rights Law.[7]

Highest Number of Open Unfair Labor Practice Allegations

Amazon is a publicly traded technology company, one of the Big Five tech companies,[8] which is present in many different industries such as e-commerce, cloud computing, and video streaming. Amazon employs workers directly, and it has numerous subsidiaries and companies that it contracts with exclusively. While Amazon’s resistance to unionization efforts has been well documented,[9] the Dashboard shows that in New York City specifically, Amazon had the highest number of open Unfair Labor Practices (“ULPs”) claims for the full period encompassed by the Dashboard (2020-2024). Further, Amazon had the fifth-highest number of total ULP violations in closed cases occurring in 2020-2024.

Open ULP cases: For the open cases, which are charges filed by workers and unions where the outcomes have yet to be determined, Amazon had 180 alleged ULPs in 68 open cases. Having already had the highest number in the cumulative period of 2020-2023, in 2024, 46 ULP charges were filed against them in 20 cases.[10] This encompasses 95 allegations of illegal interference in union organizing, 67 allegations of discrimination against employees for engaging in union and NLRB activities, and 18 bad-faith bargaining ULPs, 122 of which were filed by the Amazon Labor Union and its affiliated international union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).[11] As a result, Amazon workers at the JFK8 distribution center in Staten Island have yet to gain a collective bargaining agreement, despite a majority of workers voting to unionize in 2022.[12]

Closed ULP cases: Amazon had eleven closed ULP cases over the period of 2020-2024. These were primarily related to illegal interference in union organizing.

Amazon and its subsidiaries have also settled claims concerning alleged violations of local New York City labor laws and wage theft. Regarding local New York City labor laws, in 2023, a Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law investigation resulted in a settlement where Amazon paid $222,454 in restitution and penalties in a matter that involved 273 workers at the DBK1 distribution center in Woodside. The same facility in 2024 received a violation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) for failing to report an injury, where a worker developed a significant knee injury from repeatedly lifting items on and off a conveyor belt, to the agency, which they are required to do on OSHA Form 300.[13]

In a smaller case, the DCWP data revealed that Amazon-owned Whole Foods, located in lower Manhattan, also paid a penalty in a 2023 Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law settlement. Whole Foods also settled a private litigation lawsuit for $185,000, in Pierre v. City of New York et al where they allegedly “failed to properly compensate NYPD officers who worked an off-duty security program.”[14] Amazon also was alleged to have committed smaller wage theft violations that were investigated by the New York State Department of Labor (“NYS DOL”).

Beyond the violations documented in the Dashboard, there have been numerous reports concerning Amazon’s alleged use of mechanisms to evade legal responsibility for workplace violations. This includes misclassifying workers as independent contractors[15] and utilizing a system of third-party contractors known as Delivery Service Partners to deliver its products to households and businesses.[16] In addition, health and safety issues have been well-documented at Amazon distribution centers.[17]

For Repeat Violations of Both the Fair Workweek and Paid Safe and Sick Leave Laws

Cava is a national fast-casual Mediterranean food chain with over 10,000 employees[18], more than 380 locations[19] and $954.3 million in revenue in 2024.[20] In a settlement with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) in 2024, Cava was required to pay over $1.4 million in restitution and civil penalties to 1,168 workers for violations of the Fair Workweek law and the Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law. The violations occurred at nine different locations throughout New York City. Cava was noncompliant with all aspects of the Fair Workweek Law.[21] These include:  providing workers with regular schedules that stay the same week-to-week; 14 days in advance of the start of the schedule; premium pay for schedule changes or “clopenings” (closing and opening a restaurant on back-to-back shifts); the right to turn down extra work or “clopenings;” the opportunity to work more regular hours before hiring new employees; a performance or economic-related reason for firing or reducing the hours of a worker; and seniority-based reinstatement of laid off employees. [22]

This was not the first investigation of Cava’s violations of law. In 2022, DCWP required Cava to pay over $8,000 in restitution to a worker Cava unlawfully terminated in retaliation for taking protected paid sick time.  This retaliatory termination also violated the Wrongful Discharge provisions of the Fair Workweek Law, which prohibits an employer from firing a worker without just cause.

Found by the New York State Department of Labor (“NYS DOL”) to owe the most in unpaid Wages to New York City Workers in 2024

Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a nursing home located in Brooklyn that offers short and long-term care services, [23]was found to owe the largest amount of back wages to workers, totaling $467,848.

In addition to the NYS DOL investigation, the nursing home had settled in a class action lawsuit in 2021 (Durand v. Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation)[24] for failure to pay overtime. The lead plaintiff in the case alleged that she routinely worked 12 to 13-hour days, without overtime, adding up to nearly $200,000 in owed wages.[25]

For Non-Payment Violations to Delivery Workers

New York City has a set of laws that provide various protections to food delivery workers classified as independent contractors, which are enforced by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”)[26]. This, in part, includes requirements that delivery workers be paid on a weekly basis. From 2023 to the end of 2024, DoorDash failed to pay workers in 17 different instances, paying a cumulative total of nearly $24,300 in restitution to the workers after multiple settlements with DCWP.  Furthermore, since 2022, news reports indicate that DCWP has received more than 300 additional complaints from delivery workers about DoorDash, in which workers allege violation of the weekly pay requirement, which DCWP continues to investigate.[27]

In addition, DoorDash appears in the Employer Violations Dashboard for its $75,000 settlement with the New York State Attorney General's office for discriminatory hiring practices in 2024 (“OAG”). Specifically, DoorDash violated City and State Human Rights laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on criminal conviction history. The investigation found that in 2022, DoorDash had rejected 2,898 applicants for delivery worker roles based on their criminal history. In addition to the payment, the settlement stipulates that DoorDash reconsider all the applications of these prospective employees who were illegally rejected. [28]

Largest Wage and Hour Legal Settlements With a Prosecutorial Agency in 2024

Edison Home Health Care of New York, LLC (“Edison”) and Preferred Home Healthcare of New York, LLC (“Preferred”), are Brooklyn-based licensed home care services agencies that together had the largest Wage and Hour legal settlement with the New York State Attorney General (“OAG”), paying $7.5 million to more than 25,000 current and former employees.  Edison and Preferred failed to pay home health aides benefits, to which they are entitled to under the New York State Wage Parity Act. Instead, that money was illegally diverted to purchase a specific type of insurance for the company, through which individuals and entities related to Edison and Preferred ultimately received millions of dollars in dividend payments.

The payments and benefit requirements for home health aides under the New York Wage Parity Act are for services covered under Medicaid; therefore, the settlement also resulted in a $9.75 million payment by these companies for Medicaid fraud. It was also, as of the settlement date, OAG’s largest ever settlement for violations of the Wage Parity Act. [29]

Beyond these two employers, the home health care industry is one in which wage theft has historically been common. Home healthcare agencies appeared in the Dashboard across the various wage theft data sources, and previous research[30] has found that this industry has a high rate of wage and hour violations.

Largest Workplace Discrimination Settlement by a New York City Employer in 2024

Four Seasons Licensed Home Health Care Agency, a Brooklyn-based company that connects home health aides to patients, had the largest workplace discrimination settlement by a New York City Employer in 2024, when it settled with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) for $400,000. In its investigation, the EEOC found that Four Seasons routinely removed Black and Hispanic home health aides in response to patients expressing racial preferences, transferring the aides to new assignments. The company’s decision to accede to the racial preferences of the patients was already illegal, but in some cases, when new assignments were not available, these actions resulted in the removed home health aides losing work. [31]

Debarred by the Office of the New York City Comptroller for Violation of Prevailing Wage Laws in 2024

Construction contractors who perform work on New York City government-funded work sites must pay at least pay a specific wage and provide specific benefits , known as prevailing wage. An investigation by the Office of the New York City Comptroller(“OTC”) found that, Montis Construction, LLC, (“Montis”) had willfully violated NY State prevailing wage law, resulting in a settlement where Montis not only paid back over $69,000 in backpay to workers and civil penalties, but were also barred from bidding for City contracts for five years. In this case, Montis had been subcontracted on a project on behalf of the New York City Transit Authority (“NYCTA”) to perform carpentry work on the Zerega Bus Depot Central Maintenance Facility in the Bronx. It was found that Montis falsified certified payroll reports, claiming to pay workers $25.38 per hour while only paying them $15 per hour in cash, and failed to pay supplemental benefits that they had promised. [32]

Back-to-back Aggravated II Department of Buildings (“DOB”) Violations of Construction Safety Laws in 2023 and 2024

The New York City Department of Buildings (“DOB”) is tasked with enforcing City laws that safeguard against unsafe construction practices[33] . DOB investigates and brings forward charges against property owners and contractors who violate these laws, and many of these cases are ultimately brought in front of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (“OATH”), where judges rule whether a given charged party violated the law. NY Developers & Management was the only contractor who had received from OATH an “Aggravated II” penalty, the most severe penalty OATH can issue[34], for violations of Building Code Chapter 33 in both 2023 and 2024.

In both these cases, which took place on Brooklyn construction sites, worker injuries had occurred on a job site, and DOB’s subsequent investigations found that the contractor had failed to institute safety measures and failed to ensure that the workers received a site safety orientation in 2023 and 2024, respectively. In each case, OATH required the respondent to pay $25,000.

In addition to these aggravated violations, in the past five years, NY Developers & Management had 30 additional OATH-adjudicated DOB violations for construction safety in worksites in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, cumulatively paying over $73,000 in fines. Many of these cases were triggered after worker injuries, some of which resulted in hospitalization.

2024 Willful Violation from The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”)

Zito Roofing Inc. is a construction company with a willful violation for failure to provide fall protection. Willful violations are the most severe type of OSHA violations and are defined as “a violation in which the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety.” [35] OSHA issued the violation in September 2024[36], for an incident that had occurred in February of 2024, making it the only willful violation for an incident that occurred in 2024 within New York City[37].

The willful violation occurred on a construction project in South Brooklyn, where OSHA found that employees working on a roof did not have mandated fall protections in place, such as guardrails, safety nets, or harnesses. [38] The same OSHA inspection also resulted in a serious violation for failing to ensure that side rails on the ladders were properly utilized. [39]

Both violations put the workers in jeopardy for falls, which remains a significant occupational safety issue for construction work across New York City. According to the New York City Department of Buildings, falls are the leading cause of fatalities and serious injuries on construction sites[40], and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health reports that the number of construction fatalities has been on the rise in recent years[41].