UPDATED: DEM Picks Beach Parking Vendor - Faces EEOC & Wage Theft Claims, Execs Raimondo Donors
Saturday, February 15, 2020
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has selected an out of state corporation with a checkered background to run the parking lots at the State beaches.
The company LAZ Parking has been battling a number of labor and racial discrimination charges across the country. In Massachusetts, the company settled with the MBTA and was forced to pay millions for allowing skimming.
LAZ Parking executives have been strong donors to Governor Gina Raimondo and the Rhode Island Democratic Party. Company executives have donated nearly $10,000 of which Raimondo has collected $6,000 and the Rhode Island Democratic State Party received $3,500.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTRaimondo received one of the donations for $1,000 after her last election from Andrew Tucchler of LAZ Parking. Raimondo is term-limited and cannot run for re-election.
General Treasurer Seth Magaziner received $250 and House Majority Leader Joseph Shakarchi received $85.
Janet Coit said DEM’s selection of LAZ Parking is in keeping with the vision of Raimondo’s Parks Initiative, now in its second year, of celebrating the state park system by investing in it.
State officials claim, “In submitting the winning bid, Hartford, CT-based LAZ will invest in state-of-the-art equipment and technology. Improvements include allowing customers to buy both day and season online passes in advance, express lanes using license plate recognition technology for prepaid customers at some locations, capability to provide real-time parking lot capacity data that DEM can use to communicate alerts when lots are at or near capacity, and capability to capture visitation and revenue numbers in real time to ensure that the right fees are being charged and collected for every transaction. “
When DEM officials were asked about issues relating to the vendor, Michael Healey, the spokesman for DEM said, "Without commenting on pending litigation, we can say that the State will be monitoring the beach parking contract closely to ensure that our vendor is in complete compliance on all matters including fairness in the workplace."
Trouble Around the Country
LAZ Parking has a number of controversies around the country.
- In December 2019 Nation Law Review reported, “LAZ Parking, the second-largest parking company in the United States, will pay $155,000 and furnish significant equitable relief to resolve a federal national origin discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today.
EEOC charged that LAZ Parking terminated three long-term employees based on their national origin. When it converted to an automated payment system at its DownUnder Garage in Baltimore, LAZ Parking terminated a Moroccan customer service representative, a Moroccan cashier, and an Ethiopian cashier, each of whom had worked for the company for about six years. The operations manager mocked the accent of one of the cashiers and, after the three terminations, told the cashier that he selected them for lay off because of their "broken English."
- In July 2017, The Hartford Courant reported, “Hartford-based LAZ Parking will pay $5.6 million to settle a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and a separate dispute with the state of Massachusetts.
It was alleged in a lawsuit that LAZ, which was hired to manage and operate parking lots in the Greater Boston area, failed to detect and deter the theft of millions of dollars of cash belonging to the MBTA, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, said in a statement. To settle the suit that alleged breach of contract, LAZ agreed to pay the MBTA $4.5 million.”
- ClassAction.org reported in 2017, “A former employee of LAZ Parking Ltd, LLC has filed suit against the company over claims that it unlawfully misclassified its assistant managers (AMs) as exempt from overtime wages. According to the complaint, the plaintiff and similarly situated employees regularly worked more than 40 hours per week without receiving time-and-a-half overtime wages. The plaintiff says his employer misclassified his position as exempt despite requiring him to perform what are considered non-exempt duties under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). From the complaint:
“Defendant knew that AMs were not performing work that complied with any FLSA exemption and it acted willfully or recklessly in failing to classify Plaintiff in his AM position, and other similarly situated AMs, as non-exempt.”
Statement by LAZ Parking
The company offered to answer any questions and issued the following statement after GoLocal's initial story was published. The company then did not respond to follow up questions.
"Over the past 38 years, LAZ Parking’s reputation has been stellar. Our mission is to create opportunities for our 12,000 employees and value for our clients. We live our core values everyday: commitment to people, respect, honesty, integrity and trust. We are proud of our track record of bringing excellent service and value to our customers and look forward to doing so for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management," said Jeffrey Karp, President & Founder of LAZ Parking LLC. in a statement.
This story was updated at 5:52 AM on 2/15/2020