NEW YORK CITY-Non-profit organization the Metropolitan Movers Association, Inc., along with East Side Movers Inc. and Universal Moving & Storage Co., has filed a notice of petition against New York City Comptroller John C. Liu challenging the city’s prevailing wage schedule that took effect on July 1, arguing that the schedule violates statutory Section 230 of the New York Labor Law and a previous March 2011 opinion by New York Supreme Court Justice Alice Schlesinger. The previous decision--Metropolitan Movers Association Inc. v. Liu--said that the Comptroller’s office set aside its use of Local 814 of the International Brotherhood of Teamster’s collective bargaining agreement as the basis for the city’s prevailing wage for moving and storage work, according the petition.

But in a notice of petition dated July 5, the petitioners say that the Comptroller “has brazenly defied this court’s recent instructions on how prevailing wages must be set,” citing that Liu’s office re-adopted the Local 814 collective bargaining agreement that was in effect in June 2010 “without determining whether moving employees generally receive such wages today,” according to the petition.

In response, a spokesman for the City Comptroller’s office told GlobeSt.com that as of the morning of Friday July 8, they had not received a complaint from the MMA. Based on the current “lack of paperwork,” the comptroller’s office declined to comment about the matter, but said “the rates that are published this year starting July 1 reflect the identical rates for 2009,” noting they are lower and include casuals. Those are defined as workers who worked less than 600 hours the prior year calendar, receiving a rate of $12 per hour.