Bloomberg Owes Employees Unpaid Regular, Overtime Wages, Lawsuit Alleges

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A proposed class and collective action claims Bloomberg, L.P. has failed to properly pay employees for every hour worked, including by failing to provide overtime wages at the correct rate.

The 24-page lawsuit more specifically alleges that the software, financial, data and media company has deprived workers of millions of dollars in wages and overtime compensation by paying them based on their scheduled hours instead of their actual hours worked, failing to pay the appropriate time-and-a-half overtime rates for hours worked in excess of 40 each week, and failing to pay for time spent working during unpaid meal breaks.

The case claims these alleged practices are “uniform throughout Defendant’s facilities” and have continued even after Bloomberg settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in February 2020 that sought to challenge similar alleged wage practices.

The plaintiff in the case is a former Bloomberg employee who says that despite having a set schedule, she “routinely worked hours for which she was not paid,” including during unpaid meal breaks, before and after her shift, on weekends and days off, and remotely from home. Per the suit, the plaintiff estimates that she worked roughly two to five hours per week beyond her scheduled shift but was not paid for the additional time.

Moreover, the lawsuit says that on the “few occasions” when the plaintiff received overtime wages for time worked beyond her scheduled shift, she was not paid at the correct time-and-a-half overtime rate. According to the case, Bloomberg reclassified the plaintiff and many other employees as non-exempt from overtime pay in March 2019 but informed them that their overtime rate would be only 50 percent of their weekly salary instead of the time-and-a-half rate required by state and federal law.

The suit says Bloomberg has sought to justify its decision to pay workers at this reduced overtime rate based on a “fluctuating workweek” schedule, even though the employees’ schedules never vary or fluctuate.

“Defendant’s schedule-based practice unfairly favors Defendant versus the Employees subject to the schedule-based policy,” the complaint contends. “This policy consistently and artificially reduces the total time Employees are credited with working at Defendant’s facilities.”

The lawsuit further alleges that Bloomberg has failed to provide employees with wage statements and notices that contained all of the information required under the New York Labor Law.

The suit looks to represent all salaried and hourly employees who worked for Bloomberg from February 4, 2020 through August 25, 2022 and were improperly penalized by the company’s schedule-based pay practices, including by not being compensated for all work performed before or after their scheduled shifts or during automatically deducted unpaid meal breaks or not being fully compensated at the appropriate overtime rate.

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