On May 1, 2012, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $4,828,442 in back wages and damages to over 4,500 employees, and $463,815 in civil penalties, as a result of an investigation by the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division.  The investigation found that Wal-Mart violated overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to compensate vision center managers and asset protection coordinators for their overtime work at Wal-Mart Discount Stores, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club.

In addition, the Labor Department found that Wal-Mart misclassified certain employees as exempt from FLSA’s overtime requirements, even though the employees were entitled to overtime pay for any hours worked above 40 in one week.  Wal-Mart agreed to pay all back wages and liquidated damages to the misclassified employees, plus a penalty to the Department.  Wal-Mart corrected its classification practices in 2007 and spent 5 years negotiating the back pay issues before agreeing to the terms of the settlement.

“Thanks to this resolution, thousands of employees will see money put back into their pockets that should have been there all along. The damages and penalties assessed in this case should put other employers on notice that they cannot avoid their obligations to their employees by inappropriately classifying their workers as exempt,” said Nancy J. Leppink, deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

Boston Market Corp., a food chain based in Golden, Colorado, agreed to pay $3 million to settle a class action Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) lawsuit. According to the suit, Boston Market misclassified their assistant general managers, hospitality managers, and culinary managers as exempt from overtime pay.  Because of the misclassification, Boston Market failed to pay the restaurant managers working in New York and Connecticut for hours worked over 40 hours a week.

The suit was filed in 2010 after the restaurant managers were asked to perform mundane tasks such as cleaning ovens, mopping floors, and serving food but were not properly paid for their overtime work. The workers involved in the class action lawsuit will each receive up to $12,000 in compensatory damages.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

On April 11, 2012, attorneys representing two former GNC store managers argued in court that the company’s policies illegally required store managers to work overtime without pay.  GNC fired the two managers, claiming that they committed “time fraud” by recording hours on their time cards that they had not worked.  The former managers claim they added a few hours to their time cards to compensate for extensive overtime hours they worked.

Attorneys for the two former managers filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Western Pennsylvania.  They presented U.S. District Judge Terrence F. McVerry with e-mails purportedly showing how upper level management treated overtime as something that should be “eliminated.”  The attorneys also said that they have pay records and store security records that show managers entering the store but not clocking in until hours later in order to avoid submitting over 40 hours a week.

Two other previous store managers, one from Pennsylvania and one from North Carolina, sued GNC in 2010 when they were also fired for “time fraud.”  Since the resolution of that case, 15 other managers have claimed  GNC fired them for the same reason.  The attorneys representing the fired managers in the most recent suit are encouraging former GNC store managers nationwide to step forward so that they may pursue a class action law suit against GNC.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

This month, Apple and its major supplier, Foxconn, agreed with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to improve working conditions for employees after an audit revealed suspected employment law violations.  The violations, which occurred in Foxconn factories in China, included excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, and inadequate safety conditions.  FLA secured a commitment from both Apple and Foxconn to reduce working hours, protect employees’ pay, and improve health and safety conditions.

“If implemented, these commitments will significantly improve the lives of more than 1.2 million Foxconn employees and set a new standard for Chinese factories,” said Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the FLA.

The new agreement initiated by FLA with Apple and Foxconn will most likely become a benchmark in the global technology industry.  Apple was the first technology company to join FLA in January, after Apple received criticism about the working conditions at Foxconn.   Foxconn will now have to hire thousands of additional employees in order to compensate for lost working hours, and will also have to provide greater housing and canteen capacity to its workers.

“We appreciate the work the FLA has done to assess conditions at Foxconn and we fully support their recommendations.  We think empowering workers and helping them understand their rights is essential,” said a representative from Apple in a written response to the FLA’s audit.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

A class of sales representative this month filed a $70 million suit against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., a subsidiary of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The sales representatives allege that Nordisk violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL) by failing to pay overtime to the class, which is comprised of possibly 2,000 people. McKenzie Stepe and Karen Woolen, the lead plaintiffs, claim that they regularly worked over 40 hours per week and did not receive overtime compensation.

Steven L. Wittels, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said:

“[Novartis] misclassified its sales representatives as salaried employees exempt from the benefits of federal and state overtime laws, when in fact, they are not exempt at all. There is something rotten about a company that earned more than $3 billion in 2011 profits, and at the same time refuses to pay its employees the overtime pay that is their due.”

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

LQ Management LLC, a Texas-based operator of the La Quinta hotel chain, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a putative class action suit claiming that the hotel failed to provide housekeepers with meal and rest breaks and failed to pay proper amounts of overtime pay.

The proposed class action includes over 1900 housekeepers who worked at La Quinta locations in California and involves claims of inaccurate overtime wage payments dating back to 2006. LQ Management operates more than 800 La Quinta hotels, with more than 50 locations in California alone.

The initial lawsuit was filed in October 2010 and alleged that the nonexempt La Quinta housekeepers did not receive compensation for the overtime hours they worked. The suit was original brought in California Superior Court but was later removed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on the basis of jurisdiction provided by the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA).

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs also claim that La Quinta did not allow them to take 10 minute rest breaks, a violation of California employment law, and intentionally failed to itemize employees’ wage statements. If approved, class members may be entitled to receive upwards of $4000 in penalties under state employment law.

La Quinta denies all wrongdoing alleged in the lawsuit and claims to have agreed to settle the lawsuit due to the “protracted and expensive” costs of litigation.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated.

Last week, Home Depot USA Inc. agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the company failed to compensate employees for their vacation pay after terminating them.

According to the motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeking preliminary  approval of the settlement, the former workers are to receive compensation for the unpaid vacation time, “as well as additional payment for interest and waiting time penalties.” The plaintiff class includes more than 1300 former Home Depot employees terminated since August 2006.

The lawsuit was lodged as a proposed class action in August 2010 in California Superior Court and was removed to federal court in September 2010. The former workers alleged that Home Depot maintained a policy according to which employees were allowed to carryover an unlimited amount of vacation time from year-to-year and, upon separation from the company, Home Depot would then pay employees all accrued vacation time. The plaintiffs, however, allege that Home Depot often failed to fully compensate employees for their accrued vacation time.

For example, two of the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs – Martin Henshaw and Vern Souza – alleged that Home Depot only paid them a fraction of their accrued vacation hours upon their termination from employments, with Mr. Henshaw claiming that the company only paid him 35% of an accumulated 528 hours’ vacation, and Mr. Souza claiming he only received 45% of an accumulated 1210 hours’ vacation pay.

Despite agreeing to settle the lawsuit for $1.6 million – an amount reached after mediation between the parties last year – Home Depot denies all claims of liability or wrongdoing.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

On February 23, 2012, E-Trade Financial Corp. agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement to resolve claims by a proposed class of company relationship managers who accused E-Trade of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by refusing to pay them overtime.

The plaintiffs filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking preliminary approval of class settlement, in which the settlement funds would be awarded to two subclasses of employees: those employed by E-Trade relationship as managers in California between 2008 and 2011 and similarly situated employees in New York between 2006 and 2011.

The lawsuit began in May 2011 when Hector Palacio, an E-Trade relationship manager, filed suit claiming that the brokerage company misclassified him as exempt from FLSA’s overtime protection and failed to pay him overtime ages despite the fact that he routinely worked more than 40 hours per week.  The complaint was amended several months later, with Palacio naming three additional plaintiffs and seeking claims on behalf of current and former E-Trade relationship managers. The plaintiffs alleged that E-Trade violated FLSA by failing to keep adequate payroll and time records for employees and classified the employees as ‘relationship managers’ instead of ‘relationship sales associates’ in an effort to classify the employees as exempt.

According to the plaintiff’s amended complaint, “E-Trade did not perform a person-by-person analysis of relationship managers’ job duties in making its decision to classify all [of them] as exempt” and “intentionally, willfully and repeatedly engaged in a pattern of violating the FLSA.”

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated, including nonpayment of wages and denial of overtime pay.

On January 10, 2012, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that the California Department of Justice had reached a $1 million settlement agreement with eight car washes that were accused of underpaying workers and violating state employment laws.

In 2010, the California Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court for the State of California in Los Angeles against eight car washes across the state alleging that the businesses frequently denied employees minimum wage and overtime, denied employees adequate meal and rest breaks, and failed to pay wages owed to workers who quit or were terminated. The plaintiffs sought compensation for lost wages, civil penalties, and injunctive relief to prevent the car washes from engaging in further violations.

According to the allegations, the car washes required the workers to report to work early but did not pay the workers until several hours later when business began to pick up during the day. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that many of the car wash employees received bad checks that could not be cashed due to insufficient funds.

California Attorney General Harris stated that she is “pleased that the resolution of this case will allow workers to receive the pay they are owed” because the “workers at these car washes were taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers who illegally denied them the pay and benefits they earned.”

In addition to the $1 million of unpaid wages and civil penalties, the settlement requires the car washes to pay $50,000 in various employment taxes.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated.

On January 24, 2012, Judge Ernest Hiroshige of the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a tentative approval of a $5 million settlement agreement between Staples Inc. and a class of employees who allege that the office supply chain failed to pay them for floating holidays and vacations.

A former Staples employee, Vikki Park, filed the class action lawsuit in November 2010, claiming that Staples violated California laws which mandate that employers pay employees for their unused accrued vacation hours. The lawsuit alleges that Staples’ policy of requiring part-time workers to be actively employed on their employment anniversary dates in order to receive their annual vacation pay constitutes, in effect, “an illegal forfeiture”.

The settlement agreement provides awards to three classes of employees:  those who were denied vacation pay since July 2008, those who did not receive wages upon termination since November 2008, and those who were denied floating holiday pay since November 2006.

The $5 million settlement also resolves two other similar lawsuits brought by employees of Staples stores in California.

The Employment Law Group® law firm has an extensive nationwide wage and hour practice representing employees whose rights have been violated.