New York CVS Stores Refuse to Cover Work Uniform Maintenance Costs, Class Action Claims

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A former CVS employee claims the pharmacy’s failure to provide an allowance to launder mandatory work uniforms has caused workers to be paid less than the hourly minimum wage.

Filed against CVS Albany, LLC, CVS Pharmacy, Inc. and CVS Health Corporation, the eight-page lawsuit out of New York Supreme Court claims that although the defendants require employees to wear a CVS-branded uniform, the companies have done so without maintaining the uniforms or providing a state-mandated allowance to launder the workwear.

When employers in New York fail to launder or maintain required uniforms, they must pay employees, in addition to the minimum wage, a weekly allowance determined by the year, hours worked per week, location, and size of the employer, the lawsuit says. According to the case, CVS has run afoul of New York Labor Law and New York Codes, Rules and Regulations in refusing to launder employees’ uniforms or pay a uniform allowance.

The plaintiff, who worked at a CVS on Lenox Ave in Manhattan between February 2019 and October 2020, says the unreimbursed cost of laundering required uniforms have cut into employees’ wages and caused them to be paid less than minimum wage during some workweeks. Per the complaint, the plaintiff and other CVS workers’ regular rate of pay was already at or below New York’s minimum wage rate without accounting for the cost of maintaining their uniforms.

The case looks to represent anyone who worked for the defendants in a New York CVS store since March 20, 2014 and was paid at the minimum wage rate for at least one week.

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