(Source: BBG Watch via Dan Robinson)
A $400 million class action lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims against the Broadcasting Board of Governors over personnel and contracting practices overseen by top agency officials in recent years. The plaintiffs, several Voice of America (VOA) workers, allege that the U.S. government-funded, international news broadcaster’s Board of Governors denied proper pay and benefits to VOA employees intentionally misclassified as independent contractors by agency officials, Law360 website reported.
As reported by Law360, plaintiffs in the latest class action lawsuit allege that the Broadcasting Board of Governors has implemented a system of using “Purchase Order Vendors” (POVs) “for services indistinguishable from those of direct employees, to avoid a 30 percent budget increase from providing the lawful wages, paid leave, workers compensation, and tax contributions the workers are owed.”
“The BBG put the plaintiffs and class members on purchase orders so it could extract their faithful service to the United States while avoiding payment of the more substantial compensation that is owed to federal employees,” the complaint states.[…]
For those wanting further enlightenment on this story, see the following links which cover not only this scandal involving violation of contracting statute, but the last huge lawsuit which placed the former USIA/later BBG in the Guiness Book of World Records for the amount of taxpayer dollars paid out — the Hartman suit of the 1980s and 1990s:
http://nyti.ms/1Zo9xia
http://bit.ly/1PkHCuP
http://bit.ly/1PkHQ5a
http://bit.ly/1JvgmVX
http://atfp.co/1m6Kthq
http://bit.ly/1Oj1hrA