Management Titles and Overtime Pay: Employee Lawsuits Increase
Kristian Rasmussen March 13th, 2009
Retail giant Staples has joined the list of stores being forced to pay millions of dollars as a result of lawsuits challenging the way they classify and compensate employees. On February 20, 2009, a jury in New Jersey ordered Staples to pay $2.5 million to employees whose class action suit claimed their deceiving titles of Manager and Assistant Manager wrongly exempted them from overtime pay. Staples argued the employees’ executive titles exempted the store from paying the workers overtime, but the employees accused the store of using the executive titles as a way of getting around an obligation to pay the overtime wages required under the Fair Labor Standards Act,(“FLSA.”)
The New Jersey award echoed a similar case in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where employees sued Family Dollar claiming they were classified as managers but did not perform any managerial duties. Family Dollar employees routinely worked 60 to 70 hours a week performing duties that included mopping floors, unloading trucks, stocking shelves and running cash registers without receiving overtime pay because they were classified as store managers or assistant managers. The employees were awarded a $35.6 million dollar judgment. A Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta recently upheld the judgment against Family Dollar Stores.
In these suits involving overtime pay and job classification, juries have agreed with employees that the retailers’ efforts to circumvent the FLSA were not one-time violations. More suits are likely to expose the trend of retailers who have sought to cut costs by misclassifying workers, thus violating wage and hour laws.
Employment law experts at Cory Watson Crowder and DeGaris are interested in talking with employees of Staples, Family Dollar, Dollar General and other retail stores that may have misclassified employees making them exempt from overtime pay requirements.
For more information please contact attorneys Kristian Rasmussen (Krasmussen@cwcd.com) or Alyssa Daniels (Adaniels@cwcd.com) by e-mail or call toll free 1-800-852-6299.