Firm Hired to Maintain Prov Schools Paid $140M for Unpaid Wages in 2022, Linked to Workplace Abuse
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
ABM Industries was recently selected by the Providence School Board to take over the facilities contract for all of the schools — a contract awarded in late May for more than $70 million.
The same company reached an agreement just over a year ago to pay $140 million to thousands of its California workers to resolve a 15-year-long consolidated case over ABM's timekeeping system, which employees alleged caused them to be underpaid.
In addition, ABM has been cited dozens of times for wage fraud and work safety issues, according to the website Violation Tracker.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTA Frontline special broadcast on PBS found that ABM was one of the violators of workers' rights.
The one-hour segment was titled “Rape on the Night Shift” and chronicled the cases of abuse of Latina workers and cited examples of sexual assaults.
GoLocal reached out to the company and multiple employees to seek comment on the legal issues. None responded to requests for comment.
ABM won the contract from the Providence School Department over long-time contractors Aramark and UG2.
California Case Settled in 2022
“The settlement class involves 50,000 janitors who worked for ABM between 2002 and 2013, according to Stan S. Mallison, an attorney with Mallison & Martinez representing the workers. The janitors claimed that ABM violated state labor law by systematically failing to keep accurate time records that reflected the actual hours they worked,” according to Law 360.
Mallison told the legal website Law360 in 2022 that he was thrilled with the recovery.
"We spent 15 years trying to recover these wages," he said. "And we finally have in spades, so I'm very happy."
ABM CEO Scott Salmirs said in a statement that the settlement "is in the best interest of ABM and our stakeholders, as it removes the ongoing costs and uncertainty associated with protracted litigation."
As part of the settlement, ABM did not admit any wrongdoing.
The company has faced other wages and benefits challenges from its workers in the past. Most recently, in 2020, ABM Onsite Services West Inc. agreed to pay $4.1 million to settle a proposed class action claiming it took too much out of employees' paychecks to pay into an Oregon state benefits fund.
And in 2017, the company agreed to shell out $5 million to resolve overtime and break claims for 7,000 California security guards, according to Law360.
ABM employs about 100,000 and works in more than a dozen different industries.
“Rape on the Night Shift.”
A Frontline special broadcast on PBS found that ABM was one of the biggest violators of workers' rights.
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE ABOVE
Frontline reported:
"ABM says it has one of the most sophisticated worker protection programs in the industry.
But we found more than 40 sexual harassment lawsuits against ABM over the past two decades.
In fact, ABM is one of the few companies to have been sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) multiple times for sexual harassment.
Anna Park was in charge of the biggest EEOC sexual harassment case against ABM. "When the EEOC brought a class case against ABM Industries, I felt it exemplified one of the worst handlings by a company of complaints of harassment," said Park."
Park is the Regional Attorney for the Los Angeles District Office of the EEOC. She is one of fifteen regional attorneys tasked with heading the litigation units for the regional district offices.
