Night-Shift Janitors in Austin and San Antonio

Sue Target Department Stores and

Cleaning Company for Wage Violations

On June 29, 2006, twelve janitors filed a federal lawsuit on against the Target department store chain and a cleaning service company employed by Target, alleging widespread minimum wage and overtime violations at Target stores in the Austin and San Antonio areas.

 In the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Antonio, the workers say they were required to work 55 to 70 hours a week, laboring seven days a week with only one day off every other week.  The plaintiffs in the suit received no overtime pay for these long hours, even though federal law requires employers to pay overtime wages at one and a half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked over forty hours in a week.

 In addition, their semi-weekly wage rates were so low that their pay fell short of the federally- mandated minimum wage of $5.15 an hour in many cases.

The workers are represented by the Equal Justice Center, supported by the EJC's Central Texas Immigrant Workers' Rights Center and the Transnational Worker Rights Clinic which the EJC operates in partnership with the University of Texas School of Law.  Co-counsel on the case include the Austin law firm of Deats, Durst, Owen and Levy, and San Antonio attorney Joseph Berra.