About a dozen current and former bus drivers, lot workers and attendants filed a lawsuit Thursday in Baltimore Circuit Court, claiming that their employer ? First Student Inc. ? didn?t pay them overtime and sometimes even regular wages for their work.
First Student is a national transportation company based in Cincinnati. The company has offices in Baltimore and has contracts with the public school systemsof Baltimore City and Baltimore County to transport students.
“Rather than keeping accurate time records as required by state and federal law, First Student pays plaintiffs and other similarly situated employees based on the company?s estimate of the time required to perform the job, not the actual time,” the employees said in their lawsuit.
When told of the lawsuit, Tony Bennett, contract manager for the Baltimore operations of First Student, said he was unaware of widespread employee concerns about wages and overtime pay.
“If there are concerns as far as wages owed and whether there is overtime, then it hasn?t been addressed here,” he said Thursday.
The employees work at two First Student bus yards in Baltimore at Philadelphia Road and Joh Avenue. Bennett said that in a typical week he may “get a handful” of employees who come to him with disagreements about their work hours.
“Our work is part time,” Bennett said, adding that sometimes employees forget they didn?t work a couple of hours or a certain day.
But Rose Marie Sandlin and Melanie Willner, both longtime drivers, said the company doesn?t require workers to punch a time clock and often miscalculates the time it actually takes to make trips.
Baltimore lawyer Deborah Thompson Eisenberg is seeking a class action lawsuit and says up to 300 workers could be involved. The workers want back pay of at least time-and-a-half for the past three years.
Earlier this month, workers at First Student voted to join the Teamsters union.
