More Than 9,000 Chipotle Workers Claim They Were Cheated Out of Wages

The last time Chipotle was in the headlines, customers around the nation were concerned about foodborne illnesses and unsanitary working conditions. But this time it's not the customers that are complaining: it's the workers.

Thousands of Chipotle workers around the country claim they were cheated out of their wages by the fast food chain. More than 9,000 workers are suing the chain for wage theft, saying that they worked extra hours and were never paid.

Chipotle has several locations in the Philadelphia area, including:

• Turner Square in West Chester
• Freemansburg Avenue in Exton
• Airport Square, North Wales
• North Gulph Road, King of Prussia
• Dekalb Pike, King of Prussia
• Lancaster Avenue, Wayne
• Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore
• W. Germantown Pike, Plymouth Meeting
• W. Moreland Road, Willow Grove
• Limekiln Pike, Fort Washington
• Old York Road, Abington

One former Chipotle employee, Felipe Ricardo, told CNN Money that he worked at a Chipotle in Danbury, in the summer of 2016. He said although the schedule said his shift ended at 11:30 p.m., it was "almost impossible" to get out on time and worked until 1 a.m. He, along with more than 9,000 other workers, said they never got paid extra hours they worked off the clock.

New York Post reported in March that Chipotle has been hit with 115 federal employee lawsuits over the last five years, three times the rate of two of Panera Bread and Starbucks. This is the first large class action lawsuit against the company for wage theft, according to lawyer Kent Williams of Williams Law Firm, who is representing the employees in Turner v. Chipotle.

In October of 2015, Chipotle closed dozens of locations after a multi-state E. coli outbreak. The company said it conducted food and environmental testing in affected restaurants and tested food in its distribution center to correct the problem after dozens became ill after eating the restaurant's Mexican food.

Image by Mike Mozart via Flickr Creative Commons