Jury: Mine contractor broke state law with unpaid pre-, post-shift work
A Washington County jury found a contractor at Consol’s Enlow Fork Mine broke state law by not paying hundreds of underground mineworkers for time it required them to be on the job outside of their normal shifts.
The verdict – returned Thursday following a three-day civil trial before Common Pleas Judge Michael Lucas – came in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of current and former employees of GMS Mine Repair & Maintenance Inc. at the East Finley Township coal mine. Jurors found the company, whose main office is in Garrett County, Md., broke the state minimum wage law and an oral contract with the workers by not compensating them for time they spent when they were required to show up for their shifts early and stay late at the work site.
“Obviously, we would say we’re pleased with the jury’s decision and we believe it’s just,” said Larry Weisberg, an attorney representing the class of 565 nonunion workers in the case. “And we look forward to working through the remaining process to recover the wages and whatever damages these workers are ultimately entitled to.”
The named plaintiff in the case was Joseph Bonds of Wheeling, W.Va. Weisberg and Derrek Cummings – partners at the Harrisburg employment law firm McCarthy Wesiberg Cummings – are his lead plaintiffs attorneys.
They brought the case in 2015, claiming GMS had required employees to work off the clock by requiring them to park at a satellite entrance and travel by shuttle to and from the mine entrance on Pleasant Grove Road, about a quarter of a mile away, but didn’t pay them for that time. They’d also gone without