The Age of the Overtime Class Action…
Wells, It’s Official… Wells Fargo is now facing a wages and overtime class action filed by technical support staff who allege that they were not paid for time worked in excess of 40 hours per week.
The suit covers all network engineers, operating systems engineers, information security analysts, technical service specialists, systems support analysts, web engineers, web support engineers, web systems engineers, operating systems analysts (level 2), systems QA analysts (levels 2 or 3), computer operations analysts (levels 3 or 4), database administrators (levels 2 or 3), and applications systems engineers (level 3) who worked for Wells Fargo as exempt employees at any time during the past three years anywhere in the United States. It is estimated that about 3,000 employees are eligible to participate in the unpaid overtime class action.
Eligible employees have 75 days to join the lawsuit.
BOA Constricting Overtime Pay? And then there’s Bank of America: A lawsuit was filed this week on behalf of telephone-dedicated employees for unpaid wages and overtime worked at company call centers across the country. The lawsuit was filed as a collective action, which
Top Class ActionsWynn Gambling with Employees Health? After all the noise about second hand smoke being a known risk factor for cancer, you would think the last thing an employer would want to do is wilfully expose its employees to the carcinogen. At the very least, why risk the lawsuit, right?
Wrong. The employees at Wynn Las Vegas Hotel and Casino filed a class action lawsuit this week, alleging that Wynn failed to provide a safe work environment for its employees and failed to protect them from the effects of second-hand smoke.
According to the suit, the risks are exacerbated for employees because not only is smoking permitted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but it is also encouraged. In some cases the casino gives cigarettes away to gamblers on the casino floor. What? That’s bad judgement no matter how you look at it.
The suit further claims employees that complain about the smoke risk losing their jobs. So, let’s see, you have to choose between risking your health or your livelihood. Or sue. Well—I’d choose the last option as well.
New Math on Big Bank Fees: Big Banks = Big Fees = Big Lawsuits = Big Settlements. At
Ever been hit by your bank with surprise overdraft fees, sometimes totalling more than the actual debit itself? You know—you make a $3 purchase on debit, and the bank takes an additional $30 as an overdraft fee for processing the debit instead of returning it NSF—which would also have cost you money. (So where’s the protection?)
That practice, of being “enrolled” in overdraft protection programs without the bank actually contacting you, may be coming to an end, thanks in part to lawsuits. One woman in Baltimore recently filed an overdraft fees lawsuit, which is seeking class action status, against M&T Bank in Maryland, alleging the bank’s overdraft programs are in violation of the state’s consumer protection laws.
What’s her beef? $370 in overdraft fees. She was reportedly overdrawn twice in a 12-month period: a $12.08 charge for lunch triggered a $37 overdraft fee. And something similar happened again the following year. Maxine Given, the plaintiff, is a senior director of finance and administration for the Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine. In order to dispute the fees with her bank she had to take time off work.
Umm, just so we’re clear—the bank didn’t need Given’s permission to take money out of her account—but did require her to come down to the bank in person with questions about the withdrawals?