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More than 1,000 members of Washington, D.C., law enforcement are suing the District of Columbia and the police department for alleged shortages in overtime pay during the coronavirus pandemic.
The officers say the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) are in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
According to the lawsuit, Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency in the district on March 11 due to the growing coronavirus pandemic. That order has since been extended and is now in effect until Oct. 9.
On April 14, Bowser emailed district employees to make them aware she’d authorized a “$14 per diem premium payment” for employees physically required to report to work to perform their job “for the duration of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.”
The district and Metro PD (MPD) began providing hazard pay on employees’ April 20 paychecks, and continue to provide the $14 per diem hazard pay, according to the lawsuit.
The police officers say they fall into this category of employee and have, in fact, been receiving the hazard pay.
In accordance with the FLSA and a collective bargaining agreement in place, the plaintiffs maintain they are entitled to minimum overtime pay of 1.5 times their regular pay rate “for all hours worked in excess of 171 in a 28-day work period.”
The plaintiffs argue, however, that since March 16, they have been working more than that but have been receiving reduced overtime pay because their regular rates didn’t take the $14 per diem hazard pay into account.
According to the lawsuit, the police union’s chairman emailed the department’s employee relations unit in mid-April to inquire about the hazard pay and argued that such pay must be included when calculating overtime pay, per the FLSA.
On July 29, the union’s vice chairman and treasurer met with MPD representatives to discuss the hazard pay, and were told the district would not be including hazard pay in the overtime pay calculations, the lawsuit says.
The union claims it sent a letter to MPD on July 31, specifically explaining what the FLSA requires regarding overtime pay and that “failing to include the COVID-19 hazard pay in employees’ regular rate of pay has the effect of decreasing the employees’ overtime rate of pay.”
The letter demanded the district provide backpay, but so far, the District of Columbia and MPD have failed to comply, the lawsuit says.
The officers are seeking a declaration that the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Police Department have “willfully and wrongfully” violated their statutory obligations; an order for a complete accounting of all compensation to which the plaintiffs are entitled; and awards of backpay and monetary damages equal to officers’ unpaid compensation plus interest, attorneys’ fees and court costs, and any other relief the Court deems appropriate.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said each officer could be eligible for about an extra $2 per day of overtime worked, adding that the total amount of damages could “run into the six figures,” according to The Washington Post.
“They clearly owe this money to the officers and now we have to sue to get it,” plaintiffs’ counsel said.
Do you think officers’ hazard pay should be taken into account when calculating their overtime pay during the pandemic? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
The plaintiffs are represented by Gregory K. McGillivary and Sarah M. Block of McGillivary Steele Elkin LLP.
The Washington, D.C., Officers Overtime and Hazard Pay Lawsuit is Marinos Marinos, et al. v. the District of Columbia, et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-02828-RCL, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
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