Chipotle Sued for $150 million by New York City Over Scheduling Violations

On Wednesday, April 28, 2021, New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection filed a suit in the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings seeking to collect $150 million from Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (“Chipotle”) on behalf of approximately 6,500 workers.  The complaint alleges that Chipotle committed approximately 599,693 violations of the Fair Workweek Law (“FWL”) which was signed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017.  

The FWL requires fast-food chains in New York City to give workers their schedules two weeks in advance, unless a worker provides written consent and is paid premium pay.  Additionally, the FWL requires employers to give their employees at least 11 hours between shifts on consecutive days absent written consent from the employee, requires employers to offer additional shifts to workers before hiring new employees, and lays out penalties for schedule changes without having provided the required notice.

The city estimates that each Chipotle employee who worked for Chipotle throughout its 80 to 90 locations in New York City is owed around $23,061 for the 599,693 violations that spanned from November 2017 through September 2019. 

The city claims that Chipotle employees “experienced multiple violations of the law every week” and “rarely received schedules 14 days in advance.  Chipotle continued to change employees’ schedules often and at the last minute[.]”  Indeed, Chipotle purportedly maintained the exact irregular scheduling practices that the FWL was created to eliminate.  Additionally, Chipotle is accused of creating “false documentation of employees’ ‘waivers’ of premium pay.”

“Chipotle’s flagrant disregard for our laws and for their employees is unacceptable,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement on April 28, 2021.  “Workers deserve reliable schedules and we will do everything in our power to hold them accountable.  This is about protecting workers’ rights.”