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Parking productions assistants have reached a Columbia Pictures overtime settlement in principle after months of negotiations.
Columbia Pictures and several other major film studios hire parking production assistants to secure film lots by blocking off streets, hold the production company’s parking spaces and guard equipment from being stolen or ticketed.
Workers have been told to stay on set for 24-hour shifts with no breaks and cannot leave the set for any reason during said shifts, according to the lawsuit.
Parking productions assistants are paid $150 a day no matter how long a shift lasts. The suit alleges if they need to go to the restroom, they are forced to use bags or buckets in their cars or wear adult diapers.
Parking production assistants filed a putative class complaint in February against major studios under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law.
Studios face allegations of failing to pay minimum wage and overtime to parking production assistants who were hired to secure sets, lots and streets in New York for a variety of movies and shows.
One named plaintiff, Christian P., says most weeks start with a text from a number he doesn’t recognize that indicates the address and time he needs to report to work.
Upon arriving, he signs a wage form with the hours and pay rate left blank because they will be filled in later.
His shift begins by sitting for days and nights in a parked vehicle to save parking places for a television, movie or production company filming in New York nearby.
Christian claims that studios underpay such workers, deny them minimum wage and overtime pay, falsify time sheets and threaten to not hire you again if you fail to comply.
The Columbia Pictures overtime settlement is personal to him.
As a parking production assistant in an industry that spent $8.7 billion in New York City in 2014 according to one study, Christian says he only wants fair compensation.
“Without us, there are no movies and no shows, and yet we’re still overlooked and underpaid,” said Christian, 43, a single father of two daughters from East New York, Brooklyn, who said he had worked as many as 150 hours a week on productions like “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “All we want is our fair share.”
Among the studios that are accused of unfair labor practices are Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., Annapuma Productions LLC, Lions Gate Entertainment, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Marvel Studios LLC and Atlas Entertainment Inc.
Columbia Pictures Overtime Settlement
Parking production assistants who agreed to the Columbia Pictures overtime settlement are just the latest in a string of such complaints against studios.
Proposed class action lawsuits against HBO, CBS Corp., ABC Television Inc., Netflix Inc. are also in the works.
NBCUniversal Media LLC said in July that it had reached settlements to end two different class action lawsuits filed by productions assistants who claim they were denied overtime pay while working on shows such as “The Blacklist.”
New York Labor Laws Mandate Breaks
According to New York labor laws, any employee who works a shift of more than six hours starting before 11am and continues until 2pm must have an uninterrupted lunch period of at least 30 minutes between 11am and 2pm.
Meal breaks are not counted as work time, so employers do not need to pay for meal time.
Overtime pay is one and one-half times the employee’s regular, “straight-time” hourly rate of pay for all hours over 40 in a payroll week.
The Columbia Pictures Overtime Lawsuit is Case No. 1:16-cv-01402 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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One thought on Columbia Pictures Overtime Settlement to Benefit Parking Production Assistants
Hello I’ve worked as a parking p.a for 7 years. I know my name is there in the suit. Call u have someone call me @ 3476785302 . Thank you