National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), National Council of GSA Locals Begins Process for Distribution of $30 Million Settlement of Nationwide FLSA Overtime Union Grievance against the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
Baltimore, Maryland. The Law Offices of Snider & Associates, LLC and the NFFE National Council of GSA Locals, which represents over thousands of employees at the U.S. General Services Administration, announced today that it has reached a settlement with GSA in a Union Grievance over violations of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The Settlement provides for payment by the U.S. Government of $30 million in damages for violations regarding overtime exemptions and back pay. The distribution of damages will commence shortly, according to Mr. Stephan Sutich, General Counsel of NFFE.
Under the settlement, GSA agreed to pay $30 Million to resolve claims by the Union on behalf of current and former GSA employees who were not compensated properly under the FLSA. In addition, GSA agreed that many employees were erroneously classified, meaning they should have been and will in the future be covered by the FLSA.
“The Union and GSA management worked together to resolve this matter,” said Michael J. Snider, Esq. of Snider & Associates LLC., Lead Counsel for NFFE, adding that “this settlement will ensure that the Agency complies with the regulations under the FLSA and will protect both current and future GSA employees.” This resolution has been over ten years in the making and eliminated the need for what would have likely been several years of protracted and costly litigation.
The Union brought forth the claims in a Union Grievance and Arbitration filed in 2002. The essence of the action was that employees were erroneously classified as exempt from the FLSA, which are the federal laws protecting employees from being forced to work overtime without being properly compensated. Other key allegations included the denial of the choice of overtime payments in lieu of compensatory time, not properly compensating employees for travel time and failure to provide compensation for “off the clock” work, also known as suffer or permit overtime.