Employer Violations Dashboard

Largest Settlement with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection in 2025

Starbucks is a global publicly traded coffee company with over 40,000 stores in 88 different markets around the world.[6] In a settlement with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) in 2025, Starbucks was required to pay $38.9 million in restitution and civil penalties to over 15,000 workers for violations of the Fair Workweek law. The violations occurred at over 300 locations across New York City. Starbucks was noncompliant with many aspects of the Fair Workweek Law, as they were found to not have provided its employees with stable and predictable schedules, the opportunity to pick up additional hours, or a stated performance-related reason when shifts were reduced by 15%. [7] In addition to this historically large settlement, Starbucks also had three other settlements with DCWP for Fair Work Week violations in 2025, totaling around $129,000 restitution and civil penalties for 50 workers, along with prior DCWP settlements in 2023 and 2024.

Beyond settlements with DCWP, Starbucks locations in New York City have also had many Unfair Labor Practices (“ULPs”) over the past five years. In 2025, this included three violations in two closed ULP cases related to bad faith bargaining and illegal discharge of workers. Additionally, Starbucks over the full period encompassed by the Dashboard (2020-2025) has 22 ULPs in 12 open cases, which are charges filed by workers and unions where the outcomes have yet to be determined, which also accuse the company of bad faith bargaining and illegal discharge of workers, along with interference with employee rights to organize. As a result, Starbucks workers still do not have a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), despite more than 15,000 workers at nearly 700 stores nationally having voted to unionize. [8] [9]

Largest Wage and Hour Settlement with a Prosecutorial Agency in 2025

Americare, Inc. (“Americare”) is a New York City-based licensed home care services agency that together had the largest Wage and Hour legal settlement with the New York State Attorney General (“OAG”), paying $45 million to more than 10,000 current and former employees.  Americare failed to pay home health aides the full compensation they are entitled to under the New York State Wage Parity Act. The investigation found that this pattern of underpayment lasted from 2014 to 2020.

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 $10 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. [10]

Willful Violation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) and Aggravated II Department of Buildings (“DOB”) Violations of Construction Safety Laws in 2025

JAB Industries Inc (“JAB”) is a construction company involved in building both commercial and residential buildings.[11] JAB failed to address an excavation hazard on a construction site in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, leading to them in 2025 simultaneously receiving the two most severe violations for workplace safety tracked in the Dashboard: a Willful Violation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) and an Aggravated II Violation from the Department of Buildings (“DOB”).

For OSHA, 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.”[12]  Here, OSHA found that the employer failed to “install support systems… during excavation operations to protect employees from cave-in hazards”, which violated OSHA standards related to excavations. As a result, eight workers were exposed to this hazard. [13]

DOB, which is tasked with enforcing City laws that safeguard against unsafe construction practices, brings forward charges against property owners and contractors who violate these laws in front of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (“OATH”). An Aggravated II penalty is the most severe penalty OATH can issue.[14] At this work site, DOB found that the excavation work had “led to an immediately hazardous condition.” [15]

In addition to this hazard, JAB has had multiple construction safety-related DOB violations over the full period encompassed by the Dashboard (2020-2025) at worksites in Brooklyn, along with a Serious OSHA violation for scaffolding requirements in 2023, which also took place at a worksite in Brooklyn.

2025 New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Violation for Sexual Harassment

Fresh & Co is a fast casual restaurant franchise with 12 locations across the United States. [16] On October 30^th 2025, the company was ordered by the New York City Commission on Human Rights (“CCHR”)’s Office of the Chair (“OC”) to pay $45,000 to a worker along with $60,000 in civil penalties, for failing to prevent sexual harassment at one of the locations. In this case, the worker had been routinely verbally and physically sexually harassed by a staff member in a supervisory role. Despite informing management at the location about the pattern, no action was taken against the perpetrator. As a result of a hostile work environment, the harassed worker left the job.  

Most employers charged by CCHR with violations of the City’s Human Rights Law settle charges with the agency. Despite this, Fresh & Co did not settle and, as a result, became one of only two employers that had their case go as far as an OC decision in 2025.  [17]

Highest Number of Open Unfair Labor Practice Allegations

Amazon is a publicly traded technology company, one of the Big Five tech companies,[18] 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,[19] 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 (2020-2025).[20] 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 197 alleged ULPs in 75 open cases. Having already had the highest number in the cumulative period of 2020-2024, in 2025, 31 ULP charges were filed against them in 14 cases. This encompasses 108 allegations of illegal interference in union organizing, 66 allegations of discrimination against employees for engaging in union and NLRB activities, and 23 bad-faith bargaining ULPs, of which the vast majority of them were filed by the Amazon Labor Union and its affiliated international union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). 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.[21]

Closed ULP cases: Amazon had eleven closed ULP cases over the period of 2020-2025. 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. 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.[22]

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 the company allegedly “failed to properly compensate NYPD officers who worked an off-duty security program.”[23] Amazon was also alleged to have committed smaller wage theft violations that were investigated by the New York State Department of Labor (“NYS DOL”).

City Contractor Debarred for Prevailing Wage Violations in 2025

In 2025, the New York City Comptroller’s Office reached a settlement with Champion Electrical Mechanical Builder Group Corp. (“Champion Electrical”) for failure to pay prevailing wages to six workers on public work construction projects and for falsifying payroll records. The settlement totaled $295,901.08, including interest and civil penalties, and the contractor agreed to a debarment.

Champion Electrical had been contracted by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation (“NYC Parks”) to repair sidewalks in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The Bureau of Labor Law launched its investigations following complaints from workers and a referral from NYC Parks. In its investigation, the Bureau found that Champion Electrical falsified payroll records, which is sufficient grounds for a debarment under the New York Labor Law. The debarment prevents Champion Electrical from submitting a bid, or being awarded, any public work contract, or subcontract, in New York for a period of five years.[24]

Largest State-Level Settlement for Deceptive Tipping Practices

The New York State Office of the Attorney General (“OAG”) reached a $16.75 million settlement with DoorDash after its investigation found that DoorDash used customer tips to offset the base pay it had guaranteed to its delivery drivers.  Between 2017 and 2019, DoorDash used a pay model that showed drivers upfront what they would be paid for each delivery. However, OAG’s investigation found that the company used customer tips to offset that amount. Instead of adding tips to the driver’s regular pay, DoorDash used the tips to lower its own costs and shortchange workers. DoorDash misled both customers and delivery workers by hiding how tips were actually distributed.[25]

Nearly a Decade of Workers’ Compensation Fraud and Workplace Harassment

Alba Services, Inc., its owner, and a network of related construction and demolition companies entered into a $1.5 million settlement with the New York State Office of the Attorney General for nearly a decade of worker exploitation and abuse affecting over 700 employees. Between 2016 and 2024, the company failed to report hundreds of workers' compensation claims – fewer than half of the workplace injuries it was required to report – in order to artificially lower its insurance costs. Alba’s management routinely used harassment and intimidation to silence workers. The company publicly posted flyers offering $5,000 cash for information about workers who filed claims, accusing them of fraud and calling for their arrest. The owner also disclosed information about workers to the foremen and offered cash for information about them. Alba sent company representatives to hospitals and clinics to force employees to misrepresent their injuries. Furthermore, the company fostered a hostile work environment by allowing a foreman to sexually harass at least two female employees and retaliating against those who attempted to report the misconduct. In addition to restitution to employees, the Attorney General’s settlement required Alba terminate the abusive foreman, implement new policies and trainings, and submit to three years of strict monitoring by the Attorney General.[26]

Largest Settlement Amount Secured by CCHR for a Pregnancy Discrimination Violation

INS Handbags, Inc. and its owner were held liable for pregnancy and gender-based discrimination under the NYC Human Rights Law. Following an investigation and trial, the Commission found that the employer forced a pregnant worker into a less safe retail location over her objections, wrongfully terminated her because of her pregnancy, and failed to distribute legally mandated notices regarding workplace rights. The Office of the Chair ordered a total financial judgment of $210,301.07, which includes $85,301.07 in back pay and interest, $75,000.00 in emotional distress damages, and $50,000.00 in civil penalties to the City of New York. The employer was also ordered to undergo mandatory anti-discrimination training, draft compliant workplace policies, and post official notices of rights.[27]