Overtime Lawsuit Worth $3.4 Million

Pelham Manor, NYEmployees who have not been given adequate overtime pay can take heart. A recent lawsuit, alleging, among other things, that a carwash chain violated overtime laws, has been settled for $3.4 million.

According to a City Room article at nytimes.com, from June 30, 2009, Lage Management Corporation agreed to pay $3.4 million to current and former employees to resolve the lawsuit. Plaintiffs alleged the company did not pay overtime, did not pay minimum wage and did not keep proper employment records. The company has already paid more than $1.3 million in 3 previous settlements. Lage Management Corporation owns a number of car washes in the New York region.

The nytimes.com City Room blog noted that the New York City office of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division has recovered more than $5.4 million for employees who alleged they were underpaid and overworked. Furthermore, it cited John Chavez, a spokesman for the Labor Department as saying that low-wage employees are vulnerable to exploitation because they are paid low wages and do not like to complain. That, however, leads to situations where employers might try to take advantage of their employees.

Meanwhile, a July 2, 2009, article at chron.com, the online site for The Houston Chronicle, notes that approximately 50 Houston police officers have filed a lawsuit seeking overtime wages and compensation. The plaintiffs say they are not properly paid for the care they give to police canine units, including feeding, cleaning, grooming, transporting and caring for dogs that live in their homes. The police officers say this time goes above their 40-hour work week and the city should pay them overtime for the time spent caring for the dogs.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), found online at the Department of Labor website, sets out how much employers are required to pay employees who work overtime. The FLSA says that employees who are not considered exempt, "must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay." This means that an employee who regularly makes $10 an hour must be paid $15 an hour for every hour above 40 worked in a week.

The FLSA also says that averaging of hours over 2 or more weeks is not allowed. This means that if an employee works 50 hours in 1 week and 30 hours in another, the employer cannot pay him based on 40 hours for each of the 2 weeks. Furthermore, the employee's workweek must be fixed, meaning it must always start and end on the same days and cannot be changed to avoid overtime pay.

Sometimes, questions arise as to what constitutes "work" in a workday. For example, lawsuits have been filed alleging that police officers should be paid overtime for time spent putting on and taking off their uniforms for work, which can sometimes take up to 15 minutes before and after a work shift.

The Fair Labor Standards Act was designed to protect employee rights and ensure that workers are paid fairly for the hours they put in. Whether an employer has knowingly or unknowingly violated the FLSA, workers have the right to make sure they are paid properly.