MasTec Hit with Class Action Alleging Towering List of Labor Law Infractions

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MasTec Network Solutions, LLC; MasTec Services Company, Inc.; and MasTec Network Solutions, Inc. are the defendants in a proposed class action that claims the telecommunications services companies committed various labor law violations against the workers they jointly employed. Also named in the suit is defendant WesTower Communications Inc. – the entity that originally hired the plaintiff before being acquired by MasTec.

The lawsuit – filed on behalf of non-exempt, hourly foremen and technicians – claims the defendants failed to pay employees proper minimum and overtime wages. The plaintiff describes employees’ work as “demanding, requiring both irregular and long hours spent climbing and working on communications towers and driving to and from work sites and [the defendants’] facility locations.” He argues that the companies only allowed employees to record the hours they spent working at a given job site, not including travel time, preparation for their shifts, post-shift clean-up, and “completion of administrative requirements,” though the man says workers remained under the defendants’ control while performing these allegedly uncompensated duties.

Moreover, the case continues, the defendants further robbed employees of their due wages by regularly rounding their reported hours to the nearest half-hour – usually to their detriment – and automatically deducting time for meal and rest breaks they never took.

The suit claims these “unlawful pay practices” caused workers to be underpaid not only for their regular hours but for the hours they worked beyond 40 in a week or eight in a day, which the case says should have been paid at a premium rate. Further adding to the alleged wage infractions, the suit claims the defendants often scheduled employees to begin their shifts before midnight on a given day and continue into the next day, but the companies would allegedly report this time as two different days instead of one shift. The effect, the complaint explains, was that the defendants would avoid paying employees premium overtime pay by separating the hours they worked into two periods.

Finally, the plaintiff argues that he and other employees were not reimbursed for business expenses they incurred by having to purchase uniforms and tools required to perform their duties. The plaintiff estimates that he spent approximately $1,000 per year of his own funds on equipment needed for his job.

This suit was recently removed from state to federal court in California. The original complaint can be read below.