When former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg began hiring staffers for his 2020 presidential campaign, the hirees say that they were promised work through the November election but that they were laid off after Bloomberg dropped out of the race. Now, some of those staffers are suing Bloomberg for fraud.
The staffers argue that the Bloomberg campaign “deprived them of promised income and health care benefits, leaving them and their families potentially uninsured in the face of a global pandemic,” according to a copy of the complaint.
The defendants also argued that they would not have taken the jobs with the Bloomberg campaign if they had not received employment promises, saying in the complaint, “But for Bloomberg’s misrepresentation, employees would not have accepted employment with Defendant.”
The lawsuit is filed in New York City and states, “The Bloomberg campaign’s hiring managers understood that potential applicants for field staff positions like the plaintiffs would be motivated to work for Mike Bloomberg 2020 because of their interest in working on the general election to defeat Donald Trump.”
In a statement on Monday, an unnamed spokesperson for the Bloomberg campaign said, “This campaign paid its staff wages and benefits that were much more generous than any other campaign this year. Staff worked 39 days on average, but they were also given several weeks of severance and health care through March, something no other campaign did this year.”
The spokesperson continued, “Given the current crisis, a fund is being created to ensure that all staff receive health care through April, which no other campaign has done. And many field staff will go on to work for the DNC in battleground states, in part because the campaign made the largest monetary transfer to the DNC from a presidential campaign in history to support the DNC’s organizing efforts.”
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, a Bloomberg campaign spokesperson says, “This campaign paid its staff wages and benefits that were much more generous than any other campaign this year.”
— Kelly Phares (@kellyfphares) March 23, 2020
Adding that all staff will receive healthcare through April. pic.twitter.com/SLCoipqQpi
When Bloomberg dropped out of the race, he said that he would create a Super PAC dedicated to defeating Trump. However, he instead transferred $18 million to the Democratic National Committee.
