Читать книгу Employment Law Update - Jonathan Ingber - Страница 52

In March 2014, a federal judge denied a motion by Dollar Tree (DT) to decertify a suit filed by between 4,000 and 6,000 current and former DT employees for violation of the employees' Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) rights. The suit alleges that the employees were required to work off-the-clock

 when making bank deposits;

 during meal periods; and

 when unloading trucks, retrieving carts and boxes, and stocking inventory.

DT is alleged to have

 rarely enforced its policies prohibiting off-the-clock work,

 forbidden employees from writing off-the-clock work on timesheets,

 caused employees not to record off-the-clock work for fear of discipline, and

 imposed corporate budget constraints on employee pay that led to off-the-clock work being performed to meet operational deadlines.

The FLSA is clear: Nonexempt employees must be paid for all hours worked. If employees work before or after scheduled hours, during breaks, or while waiting for a shift change, that work must be compensated.

 The lesson: Having unenforced policies in place that forbid off-the-clock work will leave an employer exposed to FLSA class-action liability to the same extent as if the employer had no policy at all.⁵