Jani-King International, Others Facing Employee Misclassification Suit

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Commercial cleaning companies Jani-King International, Inc., Jani-King Inc., and Jani-King of Hartford, Inc. are the defendants in a proposed class action alleging they violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by wrongfully classifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The defendants purportedly contract with individuals to provide cleaning services to restaurants, office buildings, hotels and other non-residential customers. Upon signing these agreements, the individuals pay the defendants a lump sum franchise fee, with the remaining balance to be deducted monthly from future compensation.

According to the lawsuit, despite their classification as independent contractors, proposed class members claim they were not at all free from the defendants controlling and directing the manner in which they worked. Proposed class members say, among other aspects of their tightly controlled work lives, that they were forced to clean in a very process-oriented manner set by the defendants and even took a quiz testing their knowledge of the company’s procedures and policies.

On top of the misclassification allegations are claims that the defendants took excessive deductions from proposed class members’ pay without prior authorization. The laundry list of deductions, the lawsuit argues, including fees for supplies and unspecified miscellaneous fees, are a violation of federal and state wage laws.