Pepsi and Former Factory Worker Settle Overtime Lawsuit

Atlanta, GAA former Gatorade factory worker has reached an agreement with PepsiCo and its subsidiary SVC Manufacturing to settle an overtime lawsuit. Tony Bradley alleged that the company illegally tampered with his time records to avoid paying him time-and-a-half overtime premium pay. He claims that PepsiCo ignored numerous complaints he made to supervisors, HR staff and other management staff about failure to pay overtime work.

Bradley was paid hourly and non-overtime exempt. He was hired as a full-time line technician for the production of Gatorade from February 2017 until he was allegedly unlawfully fired by PepsiCo in June 2022.  By 2020, Bradley’s job title as Gatorade plant worker was “Operations Tech Line IV – Filler”, which required him to work additional duties, including Sunday Startups and Clean in Place (CIP) activities.

According to Bradley’s lawsuit, he first asked about retroactive monies owed for unpaid wages in 2019, and he complained about the company’s mistreatment of him for three years, from 2020 through 2022. His complaints fell on deaf ears – Bradley never received overtime pay.

Bradley alleged the following:

• Defendants committed violations of the FLSA by failing to compensate Plaintiff at the legally appropriate overtime rate for hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a given workweek.
• Defendants willfully reduced the number of hours Plaintiff actually worked.
• Defendants would manipulate the work time records for Plaintiff to reduce for pay purposes the number of hours he actually worked in a work week.
• Defendants would require Plaintiff to work hours off the clock.
• Defendants have wilfully, intentionally, and/or recklessly engaged in a widespread pattern and practice of violating the FLSA.

PepsiCo has denied all liability. The company contends:

• It did not directly employ Bradley and that the companies did not do anything intentionally to disregard his legally protected rights.
• Bradley had not complied with company policy to record all his hours for payroll purposes and that the companies did not otherwise know that he was performing compensable work off the clock.
• Bradley was an at-will employee who could be discharged with or without cause or notice.

In a joint notice filed on July 18, Bradley, Pepsico and SVC Manufacturing reached an agreement in principle settling his Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit. The parties told the court they are committing the agreement to writing and anticipated it will be filed in the next month, reported Law360. Bradley demanded that the companies pay him all unpaid overtime wages, plus an equal sum of liquidated damages and his attorney fees.

The case is 1:23-cv-00650, Bradley v. Pepsico, Inc. et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.