Another former staffer for Mike Bloomberg’s failed presidential bid has filed a lawsuit claiming that the campaign reneged on its promise to pay workers through November and took away their health insurance in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
Ex-campaign organizer Grette Fernandez charges in a class action suit filed on Monday in Manhattan federal court that Bloomberg 2020 is on the hook for at least $5 million in damages for going back on its guarantee to thousands of staffers that they would keep getting paychecks through the Nov. 3 general election — regardless of whether or not the billionaire former mayor won the Democratic nomination.
“All parties knew that Mr. Bloomberg’s path to the nomination was a moon shot,” Fernandez’s petition states. “Accordingly, Defendant knew that without a promise of employment for a definitive period through the general election plaintiff and other members of the class … would not have joined Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign.”
Bloomberg announced on March 4 that he was ending his campaign after a dismal showing on the Super Tuesday primary contests and began firing staffers within days of his bowing out, court papers state.
Campaign staffers were left without income or health insurance in the opening days of the “worst global pandemic since 1918,” Fernandez alleges. She was fired on March 20.
Fernandez made $6,000 a month working for the campaign. She moved from California to Washington, DC to work for the gig and even put her plans to take the bar exam in the Golden State on hold — even forfeiting the $1,000 she plunked down for the registration fee to sit for the exam.
Bloomberg, who is estimated to be worth $55 billion, spent more than $1 billion on his 104-day campaign.
Fernandez claims her lawsuit could cover some 2,000 former campaign workers.
Her suit is the third filed against Bloomberg 2020 in recent weeks over mass firings of campaign staff just COVID-19 pandemic was causing society to grind to a halt.
In a statement to The Post, a campaign spokesperson said former staffers were paid “several weeks” of severance and that it has made an “unprecedented transfer of funds” to the Democratic National Committee for organizing efforts in key battleground states.
“We expect the vast majority of former Bloomberg organizers who expressed an interest in continuing work in battleground states will be offered positions by the DNC or with state parties – which would not have happened without this campaign’s transfer of funds,” the statement reads.
