Co-op City employees allegedly owed $5M in back pay

Co-op City (Source: Wikipedia)
Co-op City (Source: Wikipedia)

Co-op City workers have filed a class action lawsuit against the housing complex, alleging they are owed around $5 million in back pay.

The plaintiffs, who number around 1,000, claim the RiverBay Corporation and outside firm Marion Scott Real Estate failed to shell out overtime pay and other compensation they are owed. Some in the suit make only around $29,000 per year. Marion Scott is paid to manage River Bay, according to the New York Daily News.

“This is an employer who over the last six years hasn’t been paying the money he owes,” Seth Goldstein, Local 153 OPEIU’s business agent, which represents 50 of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told the New York Daily News. The case won class status in Manhattan Federal Court in December.

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RiverBay completed a deal with the federal government to refinance its mortgage in 2012 — a measure that will save the complex $400 million over 35 years.

But RiverBay denies the charges.

“Any notion that [Marion prinicipal Herbert] Freedman or Marion Scott Real Estate are making a profit at the expense of RiverBay’s employees is simply false,” Scott Trivella, the defendants’ lawyer, told the Daily News. The workers, Freedman told the paper, were paid according to the remuneration outlined in their union contracts. [NYDN] Julie Strickland