A federal judge approved a $22.4 million class action settlement between unionized janitors and the three California grocery chains they alleged violated minimum wage laws and failed to pay overtime.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson, in the Central District of California, approved a December settlement in which Albertsons Inc., Ralphs Grocery Co. and Safeway Inc., which owns Vons supermarkets, agreed to pay $22.4 million to more than 2,000 janitors.

The janitors claim they were underpaid while working for several subcontractors of Building One Service Solutions, a now-defunct firm that had been a contractor to the grocery companies.

“These corporations are not going to be able to get away with skirting the law by outsourcing,” said Beth Trimarco, spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union Local 1877 in Los Angeles. “All these grocers hid behind the business practices of contractors and said, ‘These are not our employees, these are the contractor’s employees, and we don’t know anything about these practices.'”

The janitors, many of whom worked in Los Angeles, each should receive $4,000 to $9,000, depending on how long they worked and how many hours were unpaid, she said. They should receive those payments in late February or early March, she said.