DirecTV Contractor MasTec Illegally Deducts from Installation Techs’ Wages for Customer Complaints, Lawsuit Claims

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A proposed class and collective action has been filed against MasTec, Inc. on behalf of Massachusetts and Connecticut satellite installation technicians who were allegedly subject to unlawful wage deductions.

Citing potential violations of state labor laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the case claims MasTec assigned the plaintiff and roughly 100 other technicians installation and repair jobs to be compensated at a per-job piece rate. Technicians were paid anywhere from $80 to $130 per installation job based on experience, the lawsuit claims, while service jobs were compensated at only a $20 rate regardless of experience level.

According to the lawsuit, technicians often worked up to six days per week, totaling 60 hours per week, without proper overtime wages. The suit blames this alleged infraction on MasTec’s policy of deducting “rollback” fees and other penalties from technicians’ wages. According to the suit, this resulted in the entirety of wages for some jobs being deducted from technicians’ pay for seemingly arbitrary reasons. From the lawsuit:

“The result of these deductions is that a technician may spend hours performing a complex job, and then have all of their wages related to that job (or a significant portion thereof) deducted from his or her pay several weeks later if DIRECTV informs MasTec of a customer complaint related to the work. These deductions can occur up to 60 days after a job is performed.

It is within MasTec’s sole discretion to make these deductions for a ‘rollback’ from the technicians’ pay. Technicians like Plaintiff have no opportunity to challenge the deduction.

[The defendant] has deducted hundreds of dollars [sic] worth of ‘rollback’ fees from [the plaintiff] and other technicians over the course of their employment." 

The suit goes on to allege that while MasTec purports to offer technicians “enhanced piecework rates” for certain categories of work, the company has never paid the plaintiff at any such rates.