D.C. Attorney General Sues Customer Service Firm Arise for Stiffing Workers on Pay

The Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office sued Arise Virtual Solutions, the work-at-home customer service company, on Wednesday, alleging the company stole wages from workers and deprived them of minimum wage, overtime pay and paid sick leave.

Large companies like Airbnb and Disney hire Florida-based Arise, which in turn recruits workers to answer customer service calls from their homes for its corporate clients. The attorney general’s civil suit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, alleges that Arise illegally classifies those workers as independent contractors rather than regular employees. That deprives the workers of a range of wage and other protections that the law provides only to employees.

The suit also names as a defendant Comcast, one of the many blue-chip companies that have obtained customer service workers via Arise.

“Arise has been elaborately constructed to avoid paying workers the minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave as required by District law,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said in a statement. “Comcast, and other large companies, partnered with Arise and profited from that company’s theft of workers’ wages and benefits.”

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/d-c-attorney-general-sues-customer-service-firm-arise-for-stiffing-workers-on-pay