Gardeners and maintenance workers claim that Kardashian failed to pay wages, and didn’t allow meal and rest breaks
Certified billionaire Kim Kardashian is being sued by former staff, who accuse her of various workplace violations, including unpaid wages and failure to provide adequate rest and meal breaks. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, gardening and maintenance workers who worked at Kardashian’s Los Angeles home also accuse her of failing to pay overtime and cover expenses, and of withholding a percentage of their pay for taxes without reporting their employment to tax authorities.
Workers additionally didn’t receive pay stubs, the court papers claim (as reported by NBC News), and one worker says that he was fired after raising concerns about overtime pay, meal breaks, and tax issues. Another, aged 16, states that he worked more than the maximum hours allowed for a minor under California’s labour laws.
“Wage theft and other workplace violations are a widespread problem in Los Angeles,” says Frank Kim, the lawyer representing the former staff members, in an interview with Page Six. “My firm is currently investigating other potential violations against these defendants, as well as other powerful families and businesses on behalf of everyday workers.”
Notably, Frank Kim is also reportedly representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against Kanye West, who was accused of failing to pay wages to workers involved in his 2019 Hollywood Bowl opera, Nebuchadnezzar, last year.
In response to the latest lawsuit, a spokesperson for the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star and KKW Beauty founder counters that a third-party vendor is responsible for the violations. “Kim is not party to the agreement made between the vendor and their workers,” they say. “Therefore she is not responsible for how the vendor manages their business and the agreements they have made directly with their staff.”
“Kim has never not paid a vendor for their services and hopes that the issue between these workers and the vendor who hired them can be amicably resolved soon.”
Recently, Kim also ran into legal trouble revolving around an Ancient Roman sculpture that was “looted, smuggled, and illegally exported” from Italy. Though Kim reportedly bought the artwork in 2016 from Belgium’s Axel Vervoordt Gallery, she’s since been forced to deny that she purchased it, after the US government demanded that she forfeit it.