A group of East Orange school custodians who worked cleaning buildings during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic lost a major legal fight over extra pay last week.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the East Orange Board of Education did not have to pay the custodians more than double their regular salary for working while schools were closed to students.
The 6-1 decision overturned an arbitrator’s award that had ordered the district to pay the workers extra wages for hours logged during the first year-and-a-half of the pandemic…