AT&T class action - In 2018, AT&T was hit by a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs representing the class members alleged the company failed to pay workers overtime when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, violating the FLSA.
The plaintiffs say the system AT&T uses across the U.S. to track when an agent logs in and out of their terminals should demonstrate the hours agents worked but did receive compensation.
Furthermore, the plaintiffs say that AT&T doesn't pay their agents for the time it takes to log in and out of their terminals and for attending "desk drops," which are promotional materials for the business's latest customer offers and deals that must be read before they accept calls. Additionally, the plaintiffs claim the software used to calculate payroll rounds down cheating workers out of more time.
Kemper Corp. collective action - In late 2021, Maria Guadalupe Amador filed an FLSA collective action lawsuit against Kemper Corp., an American insurance provider. A collective action is similar to a class action, but the certification process is much simpler. Amador claims the company cheated her and her coworkers out of wages due under federal law.
Again here, the company policies concerning being ready to go as soon as a shift starts disregard the significant time it can take employees to log into the call center's systems and programs. Also, when checking out for meal breaks, the system check-out procedure would cut into the break time.
She claims the company expected workers to work through breaks and mealtimes if the call volume was higher than usual or they would face disciplinary action. The lawsuit claims that workers were not paid for the time workers had to spend troubleshooting system failures and equipment malfunctions. Additionally, workers were expected to finish calls regardless of how long they took, often cutting into break times and past the end of their shifts, but the company failed to pay them for this time.
T-Mobile class action - Yet another class action against T-mobile alleges the company required workers to be ready-to-go when their shift started but did not pay them for the time they spent logging into and accessing computer programs, software, applications, and servers which were fundamental to performing their jobs. Pre and post-shift work should be compensable under the FLSA. The company settled for $2 million and should benefit nearly 7,000 call center representatives who were not paid for the overtime the company's policies were responsible for disregarding.