Cosmopolitan Las Vegas sued for unpaid wages and overtime

Melodee Megia, a former worker at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, along with several other employees are suing the casino for unpaid wages and unpaid overtime.

The lawsuit is seeking class-action status in representing the hourly workers. This past Friday the suit was filed in Clark County District Court. The suit would potentially consist of more than 3,000 plaintiffs out of the Cosmopolitan’s 4,300 employees.

The suit asserts certain claims that were litigated in previous years against other casinos:

• The hotel required employees in uniform to change into their uniforms in a locker room but did not pay them for the changing time.
• The timekeeping system always rounded work hours in favor of the hotel/casino. The system is based on 15-minute increments, so it is possible for the employees to lose up to an hour of pay per day. Employees must punch in and out four times per day, including meal breaks.
• The employees may have lost out on overtime pay for the time spent changing into uniforms and time-rounding clock.
• Employees were also not paid overtime for when hotel guests who ordered room service were charged a mandatory gratuity. Part of this charge was to be paid to employees, but the Cosmopolitan did not include these “bonuses/commissions” in the regular pay rate for calculating overtime pay.

Cosmopolitan attorneys have only responded that they received notice of the suit before it was filed.

“The company received a notice of intent to file a class action lawsuit related to unpaid compensation for time incurred by employees while on property for donning and doffing of the employees’ required uniform and alleged improper rounding of time for hours worked. The company is in the process of evaluating the notice of intent and cannot at this time determine the potential impact of the notice of intent to sue on the condensed consolidated financial position, cash flows, or the results of operations of the company,” the Cosmopolitan said in last Wednesday’s quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The lawsuit asks that Cosmopolitan employees be paid the alleged wages and overtime they are owed and that the Cosmopolitan pay their attorney fees.

In addition to the unpaid wage and overtime claims, Melodee Megia claims that she was wrongfully fired in September because of her pregnancy.

“The stated reason for plaintiff’s termination was that she said ‘bye bye’ instead of ‘good bye’ on the telephone to a room service customer,” the suit says. “This was merely a pretext as plaintiff had been subject to harassing conduct.”

Megia believes she was actually fired because of pregnancy discrimination “and the medical costs and other inherent costs.” She was eight months pregnant when she was terminated.

Megia claims that her supervisor often criticized her for getting pregnant. At one point, the supervisor told Megia to deliver a “pleasure packet” of condoms to a hotel customer and then said, “Isn’t it too late for that? You should have thought about it before getting knocked up.”