Court Sides with NYC Comptroller: COVID Subway Cleaning Crews Must Be Paid Prevailing Wages

 

The New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) ruled that MTA New York City Transit Authority’s contracts covering hundreds of workers who cleaned subway cars during the COVID-19 pandemic were subject to prevailing wage requirements. OATH found that the work of cleaning and disinfecting subway cars qualifies as “building service work” under Article 9 of the New York Labor Law. The case will now proceed to a trial at OATH over the underpayment amount owed to workers and any civil penalty that should be assessed against the contractors.

New York City Transit (NYCT) entered into contracts with private cleaning services to conduct deep cleaning and disinfecting work of subway cars at subway stations during the height of the pandemic. The Office of the Comptroller sued two of the companies, Fleetwash, Inc. and LN Pro Services, LLC, in February 2024 after the conclusion of a multi-year investigation for their failure to pay prevailing wages to employees. NYCT joined the contractors in claiming that the work was not subject to prevailing wage requirements, arguing that even though the subway cars were cleaned while they were in the stations, it did not qualify as building service work.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander released the following statement about OATH’s ruling:

“At the height of the pandemic, the MTA contracted with cleaning companies to hire low-wage workers, who risked their own health to clean and disinfect the subway cars that we relied on to get New York City moving again. It’s outrageous that they tried to cheat these workers out of the prevailing wages they were owed under state law. This legal finding is an important step to getting subway cleaners the fair wages they deserve.”

Emily Chang, Agency Attorney and Amy Luo, Supervising Attorney led the litigation in Office of the Comptroller v. LN Pro Services, LLC & Fleetwash, Inc., OATH Index No. 2376/24 and 2377/24. Cordie McCann and Rudolpho Donawa conducted the underlying investigations, and Ilona Stadnicka and Xiaoyue Lin performed the audits. Claudia Henriquez, Director of Workers’ Rights, oversees the Bureau of Labor Law.

If you have worked on a prevailing wage project and believe your employer has violated the law, you can file a complaint with the Comptroller’s Office here