Yourlawyer.com (Unpaid Overtime News)

Novartis Agrees to Settle Drug Rep Overtime Lawsuit

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

After six years of litigation, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. has agreed to pay $99 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of pharmaceutical sales reps who allegedly were illegally denied overtime pay for working more than 40 hours per week. The deal has been tentatively approved by U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan. However, the Novartis overtime settlement is still subject to final approval, and a fairness hearing has been scheduled for May 31.

The lawsuit is one of several filed in recent years by pharmaceutical sales reps, including those working for GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and a unit of Merck & Co. It has long been standard practice for drug makers to avoid paying overtime for pharmaceutical sales representatives by classifying them as commissioned outside sales people, or administrative personnel, both categories that are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA) overtime requirements.

The Novartis sales rep had argued in their lawsuit that they did not qualify as outside sales reps. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2006, but a New York trial judge had agreed with Novartis' contention that the sales representatives did fall under FLSA overtime exceptions for outside salespeople and administrative workers. But in July 2010, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling. The lawsuit moved forward last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Novartis' appeal of the Second Circuit ruling.

According to a Reuters report, the sales reps impacted by the proposed Novartis settlement worked for the drug maker between 2002 and 2007, and from Jan. 25, 2009, to the present. Payouts will vary based on length of employment and compensation, and on how many plaintiffs choose to take part in the settlement

The U.S. Supreme Court is soon to take up another drug sales rep overtime case, this time involving some 90,000 current and former sales representative for GlaxoSmithKline. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that the Glaxo reps are exempt from FLSA overtime requirements.

Unpaid Internship Practices Targeted by "Black Swan" Lawsuit

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Two interns who worked on the blockbuster hit movie "Black Swan" are out to change the way the movie industry treats unpaid interns. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan against Fox Searchlight Pictures, the studio's treatment of unpaid interns violates federal and state labor laws.

Plaintiff Eric Glatt of Brooklyn, New York, was supposed to be an accounting intern for "Black Swan", while Alexander Footman of Takoma Park, Maryland, came aboard as a production intern. But both claim they didn't learn much about the movie business, and instead were assigned menial tasks that should have been given to paid employees like janitors and secretaries.

According to a report from The New York Times, federal labor law requires that unpaid interns receive training similar to what would be given in an educational institution, and that companies that utilize such interns gain no immediate advantage from the intern’s activities. Their work also may not displace paid employees.

“The only thing I learned on this internship was to be more picky in choosing employment opportunities,” Footman told the Times.

Footman's and Glatt's lawsuit alleges that Fox Searchlight’s practices with respect to unpaid interns violate the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL). The lawsuit seeks minimum wage rate for all hours worked, overtime for the hours that they work over 40 in a workweek, and spread of hours pay on days on which they work more than 10 hours. It also seeks an injunction against the studio for improperly using unpaid interns on future projects, as well as class action status on behalf of more than 100 unpaid interns on various Fox Searchlight productions.

Glatt's and Footman's lawyer told the Times that their lawsuit would be the first of several that seek to fight these internship practices.

Home Builders Target of U.S. Wage Theft Investigation

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

PulteGroup Inc., Lennar Corp., D.R. Horton Inc., KB Home and other home builders around the country are targets of a wage theft investigation being conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department wants to know if the home builders have been complying with the Fair Labor Standards Act, especially in the areas of minimum wage and overtime pay.

According to The Wall Street Journal, builders have received letters from the Department of Labor demanding that they immediately turn over the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay rates and hours worked for all employees over the past two years. The letters also seek names of contractors they've worked with.

Wage practices in the home construction industry have been the bane of unions for years. The Laborers International Union of North America in 2008 issued a study that called employees at home builders the "newest victims" of the housing market crisis because of "underpayment," according to the Journal. Often, home builders rely on vulnerable immigrant labor and layers of subcontractors to keep wage costs low. A Labor Department official told The New York Times that builders also often misclassify workers and independent contractors to avoid paying them properly.

Wage theft in the home building industry is nothing new. According to the Times, last year, the Labor Department's investigation of individual wage theft complaints in the industry netted $7 million in fines and involved 4,000 employees.

The problem is bad enough that the Labor Department has decided not to wait for more individual complaints. The home builder wage theft probe is part of the department's plans to target industries that have a track record of exploiting vulnerable workers, the Associated Press said. In recent years, similar wage theft investigations have scrutinized the hotel, restaurant, janitorial, health care and day care industries.

"We are actively looking at those industries that employ the most vulnerable workers and that engage in business practices, such as misclassifying employees as independent contractors that result in violations of minimum-wage and overtime laws," Department of Labor spokesman Carl Fillichio told the Associated Press.

Since 2009, the Labor Department has hired about 300 additional investigators to probe complaints of unpaid work, lack of overtime pay and minimum-wage violations, the Associated Press said.

Unpaid Overtime Lawsuits Often Big Winners for American Workers

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

As the American workday becomes increasingly longer, many employers look for ways to avoid paying workers the overtime pay that they deserve.   But lately, some of those employees have been taking their bosses to court to recoup unpaid overtime – and many of them are winning.

According to an article in BusinessWeek magazine, some of the nation’s biggest employers, including Wal-Mart, Starbucks, IBM and Merrill Lynch, have all been sued – repeatedly- by employees forced to work well beyond 40-hours-per-week without appropriate compensation.   What’s more, many of those suing are not “Blue Collar” workers who have been traditionally covered by overtime laws. Instead, stockbrokers, pharmaceutical sales representatives, IT workers and others long considered “White Collar” workers have been awarded back pay and damages by courts in unpaid overtime lawsuits.

The Depression Era overtime laws now on the books were created at a time when most American’s worked Blue Collar jobs, and what White Collar workers there were kept “banker’s hours”.   The laws were created to insure that people got paid for the work they performed.   But also, the laws were intended to make overtime more expensive, thus encouraging employers to hire more full-time workers to avoid higher overtime wages.

But as the US has moved into a service economy, the line between Blue Collar and White Collar has become blurred, and banker’s hours are a remnant of the past. Furthermore, with healthcare and other benefit costs rising, some employers are finding that demanding more hours from employees is more cost -effective than making new hires.   And in a quest to control costs further, some companies are trying to avoid paying overtime as well.

Unscrupulous employers usually avoid paying overtime in one of two ways. Federal law requires that employees be paid time-and-a –half for each hour they work overtime. But the law contains exemptions for certain professionals and executives.   To cheat workers out of overtime, some employers reclassify them as “management.” But when these employees go to court, judges and juries are seeing right through that ruse.   In 2003, Starbucks settled just such a lawsuit after it tried calling some of its workers “managers” even though their main duties still consisted of pouring coffee. Computer programmers, help desk employees and other IT workers have also successfully sued their employers over such reclassification schemes.

The second way companies get off paying overtime is to fail to record all of their employees' hours.   According to BusinessWeek, a group of workers at Hollywood Video stores is suing that company because they were required to boot up the stores’ computers before they could clock in. And at closing time, they had to punch out before they totaled the store registers. Workers in Philadelphia were recently awarded a $72 million judgment against Wal-Mart after they sued, claiming that they were not allowed to log overtime. A California jury also just awarded other Wal-Mart workers $172 million over the same practices.

But for every successful unpaid overtime lawsuit, many more workers are denied their rightful overtime pay.   Many mistakenly assume that because they are salaried or work in an office rather than a factory, they are not eligible for overtime.   But as more employees are successful in bringing unpaid overtime lawsuits against companies like Wal-Mart and Starbucks, other workers might just start standing up for their rights.

IBM, Universal Music Group Workers Say Employers Cheated Them Out of Overtime Pay

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Unpaid overtime is at the heart of class action law suites filed in California against two high-tech giants this week. Sales specialists at IBM and information technology (IT) employees at Universal Music Group claim that the companies failed to pay their workers overtime as required by law. The IBM case alone could cost the company as much as $5 million.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) employers must pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours per week. The rules do allow for some management positions to be classified as “exempt”, making them ineligible for overtime pay. Both the IBM and Universal employees claim that the companies illegally classified them as exempt as a way to avoid paying overtime. Both groups maintain that they are not management.

The IBM lawsuit alleges that the company broke California law by forcing its sales specialist to work more than 8 hours per day, and that IBM also denied its workers mandatory breaks for rest and meals. The lawsuit alleges that the IBM sales specialists had no management responsibility, and that the classification was a way for their employer to avoid paying overtime.

This past November, IBM settled a similar lawsuit with 32,000 IT workers. While IBM ended up paying those employees $65 million in back overtime, it refused to admit that it had acted improperly. Rather, IBM claimed that it was cheaper to settle the claims than fight the lawsuit.

The Universal Music IT workers also claim that their employer has classified them as exempt to avoid paying overtime. Both California and Federal law require that many types of IT workers be paid overtime, even if the employees are paid on a salary basis. In California, companies do not have to pay overtime to technology employees if they make more than $41 an hour and engage in advanced work that is creative or intellectual in nature. The Universal Music workers, who are employed in computer network support, say that their jobs do not meet both criteria. They are seeking back wages from Universal Music, as well as civil penalties under California’s Private Attorney General Act. Those penalties alone could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Overtime has been a contentious issue in the high-tech industry. While workers are usually well-paid, they must put in long hours to meet project deadlines. Working 16 hour days on a regular basis is not unusual in this industry. Many advocates for technology workers claim that the issue is less about money than it is about the employees' quality of life. The Universal Music lawsuit is only the latest to bring attention to this controversy. Recently, lawsuits were filed against Sun Microsystems and Electric Arts, a maker of video games, by IT workers who said they had been cheated out of overtime.

Dept. of Labor Says Company Owes $2M in OT

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit accusing Rife Industrial Marine in Texas of misclassifying workers as independent contractors.

The lawsuit accuses the company of violating the overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The department says that the company owes almost $2 million in back wages. The department filed the complaint against Rife Industrial Marine and Rodney Rife, president of the company.

The department alleges that the company incorrectly classified welders who were working offshore as independent contractors.

For purposes of the FLSA, there are a number of factors for determining whether an individual is an independent contractor or an employee. In this case, the department's Wage and Hour Division alleges that the welders failed to meet the legal factors for independent contractor status.

Drug firm reps sue for overtime

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Drug company agents, who say they routinely work 60-hour weeks visiting doctors' offices, said Thursday that they had sued Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson and six other drug companies for failing to pay overtime.

The lawsuits, which could involve tens of thousands of U.S. employees, add the pharmaceutical industry to other sectors that have been accused of giving rank-and-file workers managerial-like job titles to avoid paying overtime.

The suits follow Pfizer's announcement Tuesday that it will lay off a fifth of its U.S. sales staff, underscoring concern about an industrywide retrenchment as drug firms face pressure to cut costs.

The suits are similar to dozens of claims filed in recent years against major retailers, insurers and other employers. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are also readying a second group of suits against big drug makers, alleging they have discriminated against older representatives.

The claims by pharmaceutical agents were made in complaints filed in recent weeks in state and federal courts in New York, New Jersey and California. The cases have all been moved to federal courts.

The suits contend the companies improperly designated the agents exempt from laws requiring overtime for employees who work more than 40 hours a week. Under federal law, only employees in certain occupational categories including managers, professionals and outside sales representatives aren't entitled to overtime.

The plaintiffs contend that the drug agents don't qualify as sales representatives because the doctors they visit aren't actually buying anything from them, said Charles Joseph, an attorney for the workers. Instead, he said, the agents are basically "marketing or promotional people. A large part of their job is to drive and drop off samples at the doctor's office."

The complaints seek back pay and damages for current and former employees.

Drug company executives denied the contentions. "We're obviously aware of the lawsuits," said Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins. "We don't believe they have any merit and we will vigorously defend that position."

The other drug companies are AstraZeneca, Amgen Inc., Eli Lilly & Co., Hoffman-Laroche Inc., GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer.

The lawsuits are the latest in a wave of litigation accusing companies of violating state and federal pay laws. On Nov. 22, IBM Corp. agreed to pay $65 million to settle claims that it illegally denied overtime pay to 32,000 workers who install and maintain computers. Other recent multimillion-dollar settlements have centered on overtime claims brought by stockbrokers, insurance claims adjusters and retail store managers.

The drug company lawsuits come as the industry grapples with market shifts that may marginalize the familiar platoons of sample-toting agents, said Robert Goldberg, vice president at the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.

Unpaid Overtime Employee Lawsuits | Employees: Wage Losses, Financial Loss | Employer Required To Pay Time And A Half, FLSA, Fair Labor Standards Act

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Unpaid Overtime Employee Lawsuits

Unpaid Overtime | Lawsuits, Lawyers | Employees: Wage Losses, Financial Loss | Employer Required To Pay Time And A Half, FLSA, Fair Labor Standards Act

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers are required to pay overtime to all employees working more than 40 hours per week in most situations. Under FLSA, employers must pay eligible employees who work more than 40 hours in the workweek at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for the overtime hours (hours worked over 40 in a workweek). FLSA defines a workweek as seven consecutive 24-hour periods, or 168 consecutive hours.

If an employee is covered by the FLSA, an employer cannot disregard an employee’s overtime hours, even if the employee agreed to work for a fixed amount of pay, regardless of the number of hours actually worked. While the method of calculating the overtime due to the employee may vary, the employee is entitled to overtime pay for all hours over 40 worked during any given work week. The amount of pay an employee is owed can only be determined by knowing the total number of hours actually worked by that employee in each workweek. An employee must be paid for all of the time considered to be hours worked and all time that is hours worked must be counted when determining overtime hours worked.

Under the FLSA, the following categories or classes of workers are automatically eligible for overtime pay, regardless of how much they earn:

“Blue collar” workers or other manual laborers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy
Police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and other “first responders”
Licensed practical nurses
Paralegals

Legal Help For Victims Affected By Unpaid Overtime

If you feel you were wrongly denied overtime compensation, you have valuable legal rights. Contact Parker & Waichman, LLP today to have an experienced labor attorney evaluate your case for free. To request an evaluation simply complete the form on the right of this page or call 1-800-LAW-INFO (1-800-529-4636).