A former employee of D.C.’s Office of Employment Services is suing the city agency for allegedly failing to pay him for overtime hours he worked during the pandemic.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Andre Chisolm, a resident of Charles County, Maryland, accuses the department of violating the same wage and hour laws it enforces on private employers on behalf of the District. Chisolm is seeking more than $73,000 in unpaid wages and damages, plus attorney’s fees and court costs.
The suit was filed Monday in D.C. Superior Court by attorney Justin Zelikovitz with the DC Wage Law firm. A spokesperson for the Department of Employment Services did not return a request for comment. Washington City Paper first reported on the lawsuit.
The agency has attracted criticism for its handling of unemployment benefits during the pandemic, with many claimants saying the department kept them in limbo for months with delayed payments or little to no communication about the status of their claims. Reporting from DCist/WAMU also showed the agency failed to prevent many instances of identity theft in which bad actors used the unemployment system to file fraudulent claims — sometimes successfully — on unwitting residents’ behalf.
In the suit, Chisolm says he worked as an unemployment claims processor for DOES from roughly July 2007 until July 2o21, earning $40.84 hourly during his final two years. When the pandemic hit and the office was deluged by thousands of new claims, he says he often worked...
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