Kanye West Sued By Opera Staffers For Unpaid Wages

Kanye West may have been a little too focused on his slim-chance campaign of being president to foresee his obligations to follow California laws and do right by people he’s hired for his production.

The opera group has filed a lawsuit alleging that background actors and a hairstylist didn’t receive the amount agreed to for their work on the Yeezy shoe mogul’s production. According to legal documents obtained by Complex, the hairstylist was set to receive $550 for two days of work, but when she received her payment four months later, it was in the amount of $530. She was charged a $20 wire fee to get paid. Other staffers—who are also plaintiffs to the case—had wire fee charges from the checks.

This is a violation of the California Labor code, the news publication reports.

The suit also accuses the opposing party of not recording their hours worked or providing wage statements, both of which were employee obligations.

“The defendants oversaw, controlled and ran the production, and the aggrieved employees worked many hours on the production and were not timely paid for their work, or paid at all,” a legal document reads. “In addition, Defendants misclassified Plaintiffs and Aggrieved Employees as independent contractors as no deductions were made for payroll taxes.”

The suit was filed back in July, with plaintiffs seeking “unpaid wages, continuing wages, damages, civil penalties, statutory penalties, and attorneys’ fees and costs.”

Also listed as a defendant is Live Nation and Andrew Hewitt.

The first court appearance is set for November 20.