Disney Unpaid Wages Lawsuit Seeks Class Certification

Recently, according to Disney employees, the amusement park company failed to pay employees for the time they spent doing mandatory work-related things like getting into costume.

This Disney unpaid wages lawsuit claims defendant Walt Disney Parks & Resorts US, Inc. failed to pay non-exempt workers for time spent changing in and out of required costumes and that it failed to provide workers with accurate wage statements. The Disney unpaid wages lawsuit also alleges that Disney unfairly rounded hourly wages for non-exempt employees.

Walt Disney Parks & Resorts US, Inc. is the largest business segment of all of the Disney corporations, employing 130,000 of the company’s 180,000 employees as of 2015. Disney’s theme parks hosted 140 million guests in 2016, which makes Disney parks the most visited amusement parks in the world.

A former Disney security guard has proposed class certification in this Disney unpaid wages lawsuit and has named five different potential Classes. All potential Class Members are non-exempt workers and include the following:

• Those employees who were affected by Disney’s allegedly unfair hour-rounding practices
• Those employees who were not paid for donning and doffing Disney-required uniforms or costumes
• Those former employees who no longer work for Disney but were not paid fairly for all of their wages
• Those employees who are looking for restitution for Disney’s allegedly unfair competition practices, and
• Those employees who did not receive wage statements that were accurate

This last proposed Class, the lead plaintiff claims, includes all Disney employees extending back to those employed in June 2013 and forward.

The Disney unpaid wages lawsuit says that Walt Disney Parks & Resorts US, Inc. had “a policy or practice of utilizing an uneven rounding system and/or not paying wages for time spent changing into a uniform or costume before the start of a shift.”

Essentially, changing in and out of a uniform or costume, called donning and doffing in labor terms, should be paid time worked because it is required. An employee must don and doff uniforms and the plaintiff in this Disney unpaid wages lawsuit claims he and other potential class members were not paid for their time.

The named plaintiff in this Disney unpaid wages lawsuit is William De Oliveira and he alleges that, after he was terminated, he was not paid all the wages that Disney owed him. He also claims that Disney violated state business code because their unfair wage practices gave the company an unfair advantage.

In this Disney unpaid wages lawsuit, De Oliveira is asking for damages for lost wages, liquid damages, civil penalties, statutory penalties and restitution.

This Disney Unpaid Wages Lawsuit is William De Oliveira et al. v. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts U.S. et al., Case No. 8:17-cv-01241 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

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