Ex-Employee Files Suit Against Cambridge Kitchens for Allegedly Unpaid OT, Retaliation

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A former employee has sued Cambridge Kitchens MFG Inc. and the company’s owner claiming he wasn’t paid proper overtime wages and was retaliated against for complaining about his pay.

The plaintiff worked for the Hicksville, New York-based construction company as a cabinet installer from September 2016 to March 2018, the suit says. The man alleges that during this time, he put in between 47.5 and 72 hours each week, but was not paid time-and-a-half for his overtime hours. As explained in the complaint:

“As reflected on his paystubs, Defendants paid Plaintiff $14.50 per hour for all hours that he worked up to forty per week. Defendants, however, would pay Plaintiff, in cash, at the same rate of $14.50 per hour for some of the hours that Plaintiff worked per week in excess of forty, and nothing for many, if not most, of the hours that Plaintiff worked over forty in a week. Indeed, Defendants’ practice was to pay their employees for only what Defendants thought that their work merited.”

The plaintiff goes on to claim that despite tracking his work hours on a handwritten timesheet, the defendants would only record 40 hours of work in their computer system.

In March 2018, the complaint continues, the plaintiff was supposedly fired in retaliation for repeatedly asking about his due wages. According to the case, after disobeying the defendants’ warnings to stop complaining about his lack of pay, the plaintiff was told he was “not needed anymore.” 

“Subsequently, [the defendants] swiftly hired a worker to replace [the plaintiff],” the suit notes.

In addition, the plaintiff alleges he was deprived of spread-of-hours pay, accurate wage statements, and a wage notice upon being hired, in violation of state labor law.