Former Bloomberg campaign worker files lawsuit, claiming she and other staffers were lured into the job with false promises of employment through November

Advertisement
Former Bloomberg campaign worker files lawsuit, claiming she and other staffers were lured into the job with false promises of employment through November
michael bloomberg.JPG

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Advertisement

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pictured on February 29, 2020.

  • A former worker on Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign filed a proposed class-action lawsuit on Monday, saying that she and other staffers were tricked into the job.
  • The billionaire entered the race in November, pledging to keep his campaign running through the election, even if he didn't become the Democratic Party nominee.
  • But last week, he laid off his remaining staff and transferred $18 million to the Democratic National Committee instead.
  • Donna Wood, who worked on the Bloomberg campaign in Miami, is the staffer behind the lawsuit.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Three days after Michael Bloomberg laid off his remaining campaign workers, a former staffer has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the campaign, saying she and thousands of others were hired under false pretenses.

When the billionaire entered the race at the end of November, he promised that even if he didn't win the Democratic Party's nomination, he would keep his campaign going to help the eventual nominee defeat President Donald Trump.

But just days after dropping out of the race earlier this month, he closed all of his offices except those in six key swing states. Then on Friday, he shuttered those as well, leaving thousands of his campaign workers unemployed and about to lose their health benefits in the midst of a global pandemic.

Advertisement

bloomberg supportersLynne Sladky/AP

Bloomberg supporters cheer on the candidate at a Super Tuesday party on March 3, 2020 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Donna Wood worked for the Bloomberg campaign in Florida and was let go on Friday. On Monday, she filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the campaign in New York federal court, arguing that she and others were hired under the false promise that they would have a job through November, and that they were deprived of overtime pay.

According to the lawsuit, the campaign "deprived them of promised income and health care benefits, leaving them and their families potentially uninsured in the face of a global pandemic."

"This is a tight-knit community, and they're all mad, they're all hurt and they're all scared, especially at a time when health insurance is so important," one of Wood's lawyers, Gregg I. Shavitz, told The New York Times on Monday.

Advertisement

Insider reached out to a campaign spokesperson for comment Monday afternoon, but did not immediately receive a response. While Insider saw campaign materials which showed promises were made about the length of the jobs being offered on the campaign, staffers said they were at-will, meaning they could be laid off at any time.

Insider previously spoke to two former Bloomberg campaign staffers who were let go in the first round of layoffs just a few days after Bloomberg dropped out of the race on March 4.

They said they were afraid to go into such an uncertain time without benefits, and felt lied to by the campaign, which repeatedly promised that they would have a job through November 2020.

michael bloomberg

Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at an event to announce the suspension of his presidential campaign on March 4, 2020.

Advertisement

"The timing of this could not be worse for me and all of us who were let go. No campaigns are hiring right now, the normal day-to-day operations that you do as organizers in some states is illegal at the moment and probably will be in the immediate future," a former Bloomberg organizer in Minnesota told us.

Both said that during a conference call announcing the end of campaign last week, staffers were encouraged to apply for jobs with the Democratic party, but weren't made any guarantees.

"We were given no more information than this; they hung up immediately without allowing for any questions or further elaboration," a former Bloomberg staffer in Virginia said.

Both declined to speak on the record, citing non-disclosure agreements they had signed upon joining the campaign.

It was also revealed that before the announcement was made Friday that the remaining offices would be closing, dozens of staffers who worked at Bloomberg's New York City campaign headquarters learned that they had been exposed to the coronavirus, according to a report from Politico.

Advertisement

NOW WATCH: Can the US actually implement a nationwide lockdown?

{{}}