Lawsuit Claims Penn. Sanofi Technicians Denied Promised Hazard Pay During Pandemic

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A technician at Sanofi Pasteur Inc.’s Swiftwater, Pennsylvania manufacturing plant claims she and other workers have been denied a 15-percent “hazard pay” raise they were promised for working during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the case out of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, the workers were instead granted three days of additional paid time off in lieu of the promised hazard pay, which the plaintiff estimates would have added roughly $5,000 to her wages to date.

Filed against vaccine manufacturer Sanofi and staffing firm Yoh Services, LLC, the lawsuit says the plaintiff and approximately 60 other technicians are jointly employed by the companies at the Swiftwater plant and subject to Sanofi’s policies, rules, and standards. The suit alleges the defendants have run afoul of the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law.

According to the case, the technicians received from their project manager on April 7, 2020 an email that stated they would be “entitled to a 15% pay bump for the duration of the pandemic.” The plaintiff and other technicians relied on the defendants’ hazard pay promise by consistently working throughout the pandemic—work from which Sanofi and Yoh “derived a significant financial benefit,” per the complaint.

Despite the promise of hazard pay, the defendants “repeatedly failed” to provide a pay raise in the weeks and months following the April 2020 email, the lawsuit says. According to the suit, workers complained in vain about the companies’ failure to provide the promised wages, with the plaintiff voicing her complaints on at least seven occasions between May and October.

On November 2, 2020, the technicians’ project manager forwarded them an email from Yoh’s vice president in which the executive thanked them for their work throughout the pandemic and said they would receive an additional three days of paid time off as a reward for their efforts.

A follow-up email from the project manager later that day confirmed that the paid time off would be granted “in lieu of hazard pay,” the suit says.

The plaintiff contends that the damages suffered by technicians as a result of the denied pay will continue to grow as the pandemic rolls on.

Around the same time the lawsuit was filed, Sanofi and GSK announced a delay in the development of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate after it produced a low response in older adults. According to a new timeline, the vaccine not be available until at least the second half of 2021.

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