Workers claiming Consolidated Nuclear Security shorted a slew of employees out of a paycheck’s worth of work are taking the management and operations contractor for two major nuclear-weapons production sites to trial next summer, according to a recent scheduling notice.
The trial will begin on June 13, 2023, according to a scheduling order signed last week by Judge Katherine Crytzer of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Tennessee at Knoxville. That is, unless the parties settle their differences before then.
In a suit filed in 2020, three employees at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said the Bechtel National-led management contractor for the site shorted employees there out of paycheck in 2017.
The withholding took place after the prime shifted salaried exempt employees at Y-12 to bi-weekly checks from monthly checks, the plaintiffs alleged. Salaried exempt employees typically receive a salary instead of an hourly wage and are not eligible for overtime.
In total, the plaintiffs alleged CNS withheld more than $10 million from Y-12 employees.
CNS denied the allegations in court filings and raised the possibility that the court was not the correct venue for the lawsuit — a complaint all parties have since dismissed.
CNS manages Y-12 and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
