Government Workers File COVID-19 Hazard Pay Class Action

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union for federal workers, have filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government saying that they should receive hazard pay for work done to manage the outbreak of COVID-19.

Named in the government workers class action lawsuit are five plaintiffs who claim that they work in positions that expose them to the coronavirus, but are not receiving the hazard pay and protections that they are due. The workers are Brenda Braswell, Jerrod Carrier, George Guice, Jason Phillips, and Aubrey Melder.

Braswell says she is employed as a Consumer Safety Inspector for the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While Carrier states that he works as a Maintenance Worker Foreman at the Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice. Guice is reportedly employed as a Wage Grade Service Foreman, also at the Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice, and Medler says he is a Senior Officer Specialist at the Bureau of Prisons. Phillips is employed as a radiology technologist in a Veterans Affairs Healthcare System facility.

The five government workers say that they are employees of the federal government who have been working in close proximity to people or objects infected by COVID-19 since Jan. 27, 2020. The workers are employed in a range of government capacities, but have all reportedly come into contact with COVID-19.

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The government workers class action lawsuit stresses that exposure to and infection with coronavirus can result in serious injury or death, noting that many people have already died as a result of exposure. They explain that if an infection is not fatal, it can cause respiratory illness including damage to lungs.

According to the government workers, the coronavirus is already classified as a “quarantinable communicable disease,” and spreads easily between people.

Allegedly, federal regulations require those exposed to “virulent biologicals” in the course of their work to be paid hazardous duty pay, in the amount of a 25 percent pay increase. Additionally, if they do not quality for the hazard pay, the government workers say that they are due an eight percent differential because they have suffered exposure to “mirco-organisms which involves potential personal injury,” or a four percent differential if exposure is less severe.

To support their argument that they should qualify for hazard pay or a differential, the government workers note that this pay is given when “the use of safety devices or equipment, medical prophylactic procedures such as vaccines and antiserums and other safety measures do not exist or have been developed but have not practically eliminated the potential or such personal injury.”

According to the government workers, they have been required to work in situations that expose them to COVID-19, but have not been given sufficient protective equipment to prevent them from being exposed.

In her case, Braswell says that in at least two instances, she worked at a food facility in which at least one other employee was later determined to have coronavirus. She says that in both cases, she was not provided any personal protective equipment, nor did she wear any.

Phillips says that, during the course of his work as a radiology technologist, he encountered patients with COVID-19, and even performed work on one patient who was infected. He claims that the only personal protective equipment he was given were gloves, which he says were insufficient to protect him from exposure to the virus.

Carrier, Melder, and Guice say that during their work in the federal prison system, they came into contact with inmates and staff who had contracted COVID-19. Allegedly, the government workers largely did not receive personal protective wear. Melder says that the only time he received personal protective wear was when he transported an inmate who was infected with COVID-19 to the hospital. Even then, he was allegedly only offered gloves to protect him during his work.

Based on these risks, the government workers argue that they should be given hazard pay. These workers seek to represent not only themselves, but a Class of thousands of federal workers who face similar exposure.

The workers are represented by Heidi Burakiewicz, Robert DePriest, Michael Robinson and Alexander F. Booker of Kalijariv Chuzi Newman & Fitch PC and Judith Galat of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The Government Workers COVID-19 Exposure Compensation Class Action Lawsuit is Brenda Braswell, et al. v. The United States of America, Case No. 1:20-cv-00359-VJW, in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

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