"I dress the place up to look like a movie studio. I bring all the Winnebagos to the front; I have people pushing sets around, like one of those old Cecil B. DeMille movies. So they come for two days every two, three months, and we look like we're a bustling metropolis, and then we go back to being a regular old business."
Tim Boyle/Getty ImagesComcast and several Universal subsidiaries are facing a new class action over alleged failures to pay overtime wages, provide meal and rest periods, and other purported labor code violations.
Uriel Luna filed the action on behalf of herself and others similarly situated in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday. The plaintiff says the potential class is a “significant number,” comprised of both current and former employees. The lawsuit follows other recent actions against entertainment companies from those objecting to being exempted from laws governing wages.
In the latest lawsuit, Luna is short on specific factual details about how workers at NBCUniversal and Universal Studios were stiffed, but comprehensive in the types of wage laws that might have been violated.
Her claims not only include failure to pay overtime and provide meal and rest periods, but also says the defendants failed to pay minimum wages, failed to pay all wages to departing employees, failed to maintain required records, failed to idemnify employees for necessary expenditures, and so on.
The claims are not uncommon. NBCU recently faced a lawsuit from employees at G4 over overtime and meals. Publicity firms in Hollywood have also seen similar claims. Even financial analysts at a big studio like Disney whose job is to expressly make sure others get paid accurately have brought a class action in this regard.
Usually, the complaints have a higher ratio of facts to allegations though. Instead, Luna’s lawsuit (read here) is a mile wide and an inch thick and is somewhat idiosyncratic in naming a Universal Studios executive as one of the defendants.
E-mail: eriq.gardner@thr.com; Twitter: @eriqgardner
