Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Comcat had agreed to pay part of the settlement. 

A Northern California-based Comcast installation contractor, O.C. Communications, has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a class-action suit filed by 4,500 technicians who claimed they were coerced into underreporting their work hours.

The workers claimed they faced pressure to underreport how many hours they worked and also to fudge meal breaks they didn’t take. Workers also said they had their time cards manipulated and were not reimbursed for expenses.

The suit was filed against Comcast installation contractor O.C. Communications in California, with Comcast later added as a defendant. The suit alleges that the defendants flouted the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and also California and Washington state labor law

Subscription legal news platform Law360 reported the settlement, which was carved out through a mediation process.

“The gross settlement amount of $7,500,000 ... represents more than 86% of the approximate $8.7 million that we calculated in unpaid wages that would have been owed to all class members if each class member had been able to prove that he or she worked 2.5 hours off the clock in every workweek during the relevant time period,” the workers said.

Comcast didn’t immediately respond to MCN’s inquiries for comment. 

A class action suit has been filed against Comcast over its break-out of retrans fees on customer bills.

Cable operators have been increasingly including a broadcast TV line item on bills so customers can see how much MVPDs are paying in retransmission-consent fees for those signals.

Cable operators and broadcasters have been in a pitched battle over the fees, with broadcasters saying they are just trying to recover the true value of their content after years of it being undervalued, while cable operators say broadcasters are using a government thumb on the scale to jack up prices that ultimately are passed on to consumers--hence breaking out the fee.

In the suit, filed in a California district court, a handful of Comcast subs argue that the broadcast (and regional sports channel fees also broken out) are a way to raise the price while continuing to advertise a lower price.

The suit is filled with assertions that Comcast is lying to cutomers about the price by referring to the charges as government fees or taxes--retransmission payments were created by Congress, with negotiations subject to FCC rules on good faith negotiations.

The plaintiffs say Comcast's representation of the fees is "fraudlent, unfair and intended to mislead."

“We have been working to make it easier for customers to understand what they’re paying for, which is why we list the Broadcast TV and Regional Sports fee separately on the bill and include disclaimers about them in our advertising," said Comcast in a statement on the suit. "It’s also worth noting that the complaint itself demonstrates that these fees are disclosed and that they’re not part of promotional pricing.”

Comcast in 2013 separated out the broadcast fee as an itemized charge, joining Charter,AT&T's U-Verse, and others.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld a provision in a DirecTV contract that allows it to avoid a class action suit over early termination fees and instead have the dispute arbitrated.

DirecTV's service contract includes a class action waiver saying that claims have to be resolved by binding arbitration.

After they were sued by two customers in a California state court over early termination fees they said violated state law, DirecTV pointed to the arbitration provision and asked the court to send it to arbitration. The court refused, pointing to a state law that made such waivers unenforceable, apparently paving the way for a class action lawsuit, and a Federal Appeals court agreed.

But the Supreme Court ruled that DirecTV's contract waiver was enforceable nonetheless given that it had since ruled in a separate case that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state rules that render class-action bans unenforceable.

The Supreme Court's decision Monday (Dec. 14) buttresses the practice of companies putting in contractual protections from class actions suits.

The Supreme Court opinion was written by Justice Breyer, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Alito and Kagan. Dissenting were Justices Thomas, Ginsburg and Sotomayor.

Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ginsburg said it had become common for powerful companies to include such no class-action arbitration clauses and said he would have "take[n] no further step to disarm consumers, leaving them without effective access to justice."