CBS Settles Parking Production Assistant Overtime Lawsuit For $10 Million
Television network CBS will pay nearly $10 million in back wages to movie and television set workers as part of a settlement agreement to resolve the allegations of a class action filed over unpaid overtime wages, Bloomberg reports. The suit, filed as a collective action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, currently represents the interests of more than 900 set workers.
PPA Collective Action Settled For $9.98 Million
The lawsuit covers parking production assistants, who are hired to make sure that movie and television sets are closed to the public. In their lawsuit, the workers argued that, since they are paid on a per diem basis, rather than an hourly wage, CBS failed to pay them overtime wages when they worked more than 40 hours in a single week. The parking production assistants, or PPAs, worked on a number of television sets, including for “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Good Wife” and “C.S.I. New York.”
CBS is also facing a related retaliation lawsuit, filed on behalf of parking product assistant supervisors who say they were forced to resign. In their suit, the supervisors claim to have been wrongfully punished for vocally opposing high-level CBS management, who they say instructed them to cut the hours of PPAs after the overtime lawsuit was filed. The case was revived on appeal in February.
The overtime case’s resolution follows closely on the heels of several other PPA lawsuits. In December 2017, ABC Studios and Marvel Television agreed to pay $1.75 million in unpaid overtime wages to around 500 parking product assistants who had worked on shows like “Daredevil” and “Jessica Jones.” In February, NBCUniversal settled a similar suit for $4.3 million.
The settlement agreement was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. It awaits the approval of Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger, who will decide whether or not a $10 million settlement offer constitutes a fair and equitable resolution to the case.
