Hazard Pay: Class Action Alleges GSA Knew Goodfellow Federal Complex Was Contaminated with Asbestos, Lead

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A former Department of Agriculture risk management specialist alleges in a proposed class action that the United States General Services Administration (GSA) has long known that his former place of employment, the Goodfellow Federal Complex in St. Louis, was contaminated by cancer-causing agents yet took no action to protect workers or visitors. 

The 19-page lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims relays that those who worked in or visited the Goodfellow Complex only found out about the “truly hazardous situation” upon the release of a “scathing” 2019 Office of Inspector General report that stated the GSA’s Public Building Service (PBS) failed to take adequate action to address the apparent contamination. According to the lawsuit, the Goodfellow Complex, originally built as a munitions plant for the U.S. Army during World War II, is rife with lead, asbestos and other substances known to cause cancer.

The plaintiff, a federal employee from March 2003 to February 2020, alleges the United States was not only responsible for keeping employees safe in the workplace, but obligated by statute to pay additional compensation to those exposed to hazardous conditions and unsafe environments in the course of their work. Because the federal government failed to pay the plaintiff and similarly situated workers the hazard and environmental pay to which they were entitled, it also failed to accurately calculate their regular rates of pay and overtime rates, the complaint alleges. 

Per the lawsuit, the Office of Inspector General report also concluded that the Public Building Service spent from 2002 to 2016 close to $2 million on studies that “indicated various hazards were present at the complex.” In many cases, the suit says, the results of these studies “were duplicative of previous studies.” 

“Although these studies identified the presence of numerous environmental hazards at the complex, including lead, asbestos, and other known cancer causing agents, PBS failed to comprehensively address the deficiencies and [advise] the complex’s occupants of the existing conditions,” the lawsuit says, citing the aforementioned report. 

According to the complaint, federal law dictates that agencies shall pay a 25-percent hazard pay differential when employees perform work with or in close proximity to “[t]oxic chemical materials when there is a possibility of leakage or spillage.” Federal law also provides for the payment of an eight-percent differential for “[s]ignificant risk of exposure to airborne concentrations of asbestos fibers in excess of the permissible exposure limits,” the lawsuit says. 

The suit looks to represent all federal employees who, any time within three years before the filing of this case, performed work or worked within the Goodfellow Complex and were not paid the hazardous duty pay differential for exposure as set forth in Appendix A to subpart I of Part 550 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, or the environmental differential set forth in Appendix A to subpart E of Part 532 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations. 

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