Bronx housing nonprofit Banana Kelly isn’t paying its workers properly — in some cases, it’s only paid them for about half the work they’ve done, says a class action filed in federal court by a former employee. 

Miguel Vega alleges the grassroots organization, which formed in the late 1970s as a response to widespread landlord-set fires across the Bronx, paid him a flat rate of about $550 a week regardless of how many hours he worked as a maintenance man, a violation of the Federal Labor Standards Act. 

The nonprofit forced him to sign time cards stating he worked 35-hour weeks, Vega said, but he typically worked 9- or 10-hour days, seven days a week, across Banana Kelly’s roughly 65 properties, something Banana Kelly and the three other property managers associated with the group named in the suit were well aware of. 

That means the organization also wasn’t paying Vega minimum wage or required overtime under New York labor law, under which he also filed claims. 

“[Banana Kelly] did not merely commit an isolated payroll error,” says Vega’s suit, filed late Monday in the Southern District of New York. “[They] knew, or recklessly disregarded, that [Vega] was working more than forty hours in a workweek and was not being paid all wages due for all hours worked.”

Vega, who worked for Banana Kelly from 2006-2025 and is represented by Tucker Clifford of Sacco & Fillas, is bringing his claims on behalf of all current and former eligible building service employees. He’s seeking payment of the wages he says he and others are owed, as well as potentially thousands in damages from the organization.

Banana Kelly did not respond to a request for comment. 

The grassroots group is widely respected in the South Bronx for springing up as the neighborhood burned down in waves of arson and landlord neglect, organizing residents in rehabilitating smoldering properties collectively. In parts of the borough, 70% of the housing stock was lost in the fires of the 1970s and 1980s, and Banana Kelly, alongside other grassroots groups, worked to redevelop it so people could have safe places to live. 

Now, it employs dozens across the 65 buildings it manages, some of which the organization built itself in the past few years, and most of which offer low-income and affordable housing; at least 80% of its units are designated as affordable for those making 30% of the AMI, or area median income.

Banana Kelly also provides social support services, like neighborhood youth employment programs, and help to tenants living in distressed properties elsewhere in the borough. 

The group has been taken to court in the past for failing to properly pay its workers. Late last year, Ulises Guzman, a Banana Kelly building superintendent who worked for the organization from 2002 to 2024, alleged the nonprofit didn’t pay him proper overtime wages, improperly recorded his hours and didn’t give him required meal breaks, violating federal and state labor laws. 

Guzman’s case is still pending in the Southern District of New York.