An Austintown man has filed a class-action lawsuit claiming a Youngstown manufacturer should pay workers overtime for time spent donning required safety gear needed to protect them on the job.

Attorney Anthony Lazzaro has filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Chad Viconovic who was employed as an electrician at Vallourec Star in Youngstown from 2011 until late 2019.

The company makes tubular goods for the oil and gas drilling industry at plants in Youngstown, Ohio, Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Houston, Texas.

Viconovic says Vallourec should be paying overtime to workers for the time they spend changing into and out of protective gear, as well as gathering tools and walking between the place where they put on the gear and their assigned work areas.

The lawsuit says time spent putting on and taking off the OSHA mandated protective gear and walking to and from the work areas amounts to 20 to 30 minutes each day, for which workers are not paid.

The suit, which seeks unpaid wages, unspecified damages, and attorney fees, estimates at least 300 Vallourec Star workers could become part of the lawsuit if the judge allows it to become a class action.  It is estimated 100 of those workers are from the Youngstown plant.

Attorney Lazzaro says in the complaint that failure to pay overtime is in violation of both the Ohio Minimum Fair Wage Standards Act and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

Vallourec Star has not filed a response to the lawsuit.  21 News has reached out to Vallourec and is still waiting for a statement reacting to the legal action.

The latest lawsuit is similar to a 2018 class action filed by a Vallourec employee from Poland, Ohio who alleged that the company was not paying workers overtime for preparing for their daily shifts at the Youngstown plant.

That lawsuit was dismissed in August following a settlement, the terms of which were not released.