Macy's, Herberger's Janitors Sue Employer, Threaten To Strike

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Janitors who clean Macy's and Herberger's stores in the Twin Cities filed a class action lawsuit against their employer over a number of issues on Wednesday and have threatened to strike if certain conditions don't improve.

According to the lawsuit, cleaners who work for as many as eight companies are suing Capital Building Services Group, Inc. The deadline for a potential strike is June 9, which would directly affect Macy's and Herberger's stores and could also impact metro area Target, Kohl's and Sears stores among others.

The biggest issues the cleaners are fighting include minimum wage violations, overtime violations, underreporting number of hours worked, unreimbursed expenses and travel time.

Workers claim that their wages are far short of minimum wage, in some cases as low as $4-$5 per hour. Many employees also claimed that they were not paid proper overtime when they worked more than 40 hours in a week. They also accuse Capital Building Services, Inc., of underreporting the number of hours worked by employees and seeing shifts disappear to cut corners and keep labor costs low.

In many cases, the janitors have to purchase their own cleaning supplies and are not reimbursed. In some cases, the janitors are also required to clean multiple stores in one shift and they are not paid for their time traveling between stores.