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Questions
1.
What is the FLSA?
2.
Why do current and former Battelle employees have to join
in the lawsuit to be covered by the FLSA?
3.
Should current employees be afraid of submitting this form?
4.
What about retaliation?
5.
What do I have to do to ask for any money I may be owed?
6.
Do I need to
pay any money to join?
7.
Should
I let others know about this case?
8.
If I want to be part of the FLSA claim, how do I join?
9.
How can I help
with the lawsuit?
10.
Should I be concerned that if I join the class action, the
company may change its policies or institute tougher policies
that would make life difficult at work?
11.
If I don't join the lawsuit, could I still ask for back pay?
12.
How did Battelle not pay overtime correctly?
13.
How can
I know whether this is illegal?
14.
How can I tell if I qualify for this lawsuit?
15.
What is "hours worked" under FLSA? or What activities qualify as
"work"?
16.
When is overtime
due?
17.
Do I have any deadlines I need to worry about, or can I wait to
see what happens with this case?
18.
How much
money would I be entitled to?
19.
What are the primary goals of this lawsuit?
20.
What are liquidated
damages?
21.
What if I didn’t keep time records? Can I still recover? Or what
if my employer encouraged me to record less time than I worked
on the time cards?
22. My
employer did not pre-approve me for working overtime. However, I
had to work the extra time in order to get the job done, and my
employer permitted me to work the extra time. Am I still
entitled to lost overtime?
23. What
if I knew I was not going to be paid for this time?
24. What
if I don’t have any time records to show how much time I worked?
25. When
I left the company, I signed an agreement releasing them from
certain types of claims. Does this mean I can’t get money in
this case?
26. How
do employees pay their FLSA lawyers?
27. What
actual financial costs or risks are there for an employee to
bring an FLSA case?
28. What
if my address and/or telephone number changes?
29. What
if I need more information or want to talk to the attorneys in
person?
Answers
1. What
is the FLSA?
FLSA or the
“Fair Labor Standards Act”
is the federal labor law that provides for overtime wages. It
also has provisions on the minimum wage, Equal Pay Act, child
labor restrictions, and a variety of other federal labor and
employment sections. A key provision of FLSA is that most
employees must be paid time and a half for all overtime hours
worked.
2. Why
do current and former Battelle employees have to join in
the lawsuit to be covered by the FLSA?
The federal wage and hour law (FLSA) will only let employees
recover unpaid wages if they file a written consent to join the
collective action lawsuit. That is, FLSA requires that each
employee who wants to recover unpaid wages or overtime to
individually sign a consent form and join the lawsuit and become
member of the class.
3.
Should
current employees be afraid of submitting this form?
No.
The law prevents Battelle from taking any action against
you for joining this lawsuit. If Battelle takes any
action against you, the penalties are severe. You are entitled
to either reinstatement back to your job, or the pay
differential at a new job, double damages, and attorneys' fees.
Should you feel you have suffered from any retaliation,
contact us at once.
4. What
about retaliation?
If you currently
work for Battelle and you feel you are the victim of
retaliation for participating in this lawsuit, contact us
immediately. The law protects you from retaliation for asserting
your rights and, if you suffer retaliation you may be able to
assert additional claims against Battelle. Should you
feel you have suffered from any retaliation,
contact us at once.
5. What
do I have to do to ask for any money I may be owed?
To be able to
receive any money you are owed for the unpaid federal wages, you
need to complete this
consent form in time. Every day that passes can reduce the
amount you recover, or prevent you from recovering at all. We
will then have this form filed with the Court.
Should
Battelle be found to have not paid you overtime and/or
failed to pay you overtime for all hours worked and/or did not
pay you for all time worked, a Court will decide how much
overtime Battelle owes you.
6.
Do I need to
pay any money to join?
No! There
is absolutely no cost to join this lawsuit. If the
Court determines you are entitled to recovery, attorneys' fees
and costs will be paid either by Dick’s Sporting Goods or will
be awarded by the Court from the fund Dick’s Sporting Goods
creates to pay the unpaid overtime. If the case is not
successful, you owe no fees. Therefore, there is no financial
risk to you.
7.
Should I let
others know about this case?
Yes.
It’s important that other employees find about this as soon as
possible. If they delay in joining, they may lose recovery
because of the time periods that apply to this case.
8.
If I want to
be part of the FLSA claim, how do I join?
You have to send a completed Consent to Join form to the class
counsel to filed with the District Court.
Attn: Battelle
Class Counsel
Law Office of Jesse Brar, P.C.
670 East 3900 South, Suite 101
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
9.
How can I
help with the lawsuit?
If you have
information that may assist us with this case, please contact
us:
Attn: Battelle
Class Counsel
Law Office of Jesse Brar, P.C.
670 East 3900 South, Suite 101
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
Telephone: 801-269-9541
Facsimile: 801-269-9581
Email:
jesse@battelleclassaction.com
We are looking for
the following information:
-
Names of
current or former call center Customer Service
Representatives or Agents. This will help us notify
potentially eligible employees of this lawsuit. (We are not
seeking confidential records regarding other employee, like
documents marked "confidential" or documents containing
social security numbers);
-
Any documents
or records relating to your claim that you were entitled to
overtime or other wages you did not receive during your
employment with Battelle; and
-
Anything that
leads you to believe that Battelle knew about
overtime laws or other wage and hour laws.
You do not
need to have any of the above-requested information to be
eligible for this lawsuit.
10.
Should I be
concerned that if I join the class action, the company may
change its policies or institute tougher policies that would
make life difficult at work?
Under the FLSA the company is prohibited from retaliating
against any employee who files a complaint or institutes any
proceeding under FLSA or who has or is about to testify in any
such proceeding. Anti-retaliation
provisions of FLSA are interpreted broadly in favor of
employees. An employer who retaliates or discriminates against
an employee in violation of this statute is potentially subject
to fines or even criminal prosecution, and the affected employee
is entitled to legal or equitable relief. In appropriate cases,
courts can also award punitive damages.
In response
to the lawsuit the company, within legal bounds, can establish
new policies that may affect the way things are done thereby
making life at work more difficult for employees. But, the
company cannot under the anti-retaliation provisions of the FLSA
and Utah law enforce the new policies only against the employees
who join the lawsuit. Thus, if the company implements any new
policies, they will affect all employees whether they join the
lawsuit or not.
11. If
I don't join the lawsuit, could I still ask for back pay?
FLSA requires that anyone who wishes to recover back wages to
join (or opt into) the "collective action (class action lawsuit)
by filing a written
consent form.
If one does not join the class action, he or she will not be
able to collect from the recovery in the class action lawsuit.
You can file a separate lawsuit, but the Court will only allow
unpaid back wages and overtime, two or three years back from the
time of filing the lawsuit. Therefore, if you wish to get paid
from any class action recovery, you must file a written consent
to join.
12. How
did Battelle not pay overtime correctly?
The law
requires that employees be properly paid for all time they are
permitted to work. Our investigation has shown that
Battelle wrongly denied or failed to pay wages and
overtime to its Customer Service Representatives (and other
similar hourly employees) for all the time they were permitted
to work. For example, the employees were not paid for pre-shift
activities such as logging in their systems. Or time was wrongly
deducted when the employees were not “logged in” during the
workday, such as going over the allotted ACW time or taking
short breaks, etc. You can get more
information about the case
here.
13.
How can I
know whether this is illegal?
Many employees
wonder why Battelle would not follow the law if this
practice is illegal as is claimed in this case. There is no
doubt that the law requires employers to pay their employees for
all the time those employees work. Companies do not pay overtime
properly to save money. They expect they can get away with it.
Faced with the high cost of labor and overtime, companies try to
squeeze as much money out of overtime costs as possible.
Some companies who
violate the law figure that if they can hide the violation and
not make it too obvious to employees, by the time a lawsuit
starts, they can save themselves more money than a lawsuit will
cost. But, as statutes, court decisions, and the Department of
Labor regulations make clear, this practice or not paying wages
for all the time worked is not legal.
14.
How can I
tell if I qualify for this lawsuit?
If you are or were
employed as a Customer Service Representative (or in a similar
hourly position) for Battelle in the past three years,
from May 7, 2005 to the present, and there were weeks where you
worked over forty hours, we expect that you will qualify to
participate in the action.
Additionally, you
can
contact us to see if you qualify. There is no charge or
obligation if you contact us. We will keep any information you
provide strictly confidential. However, please remember that you
can only be part of the lawsuit if you mail in your
consent form.
15. What
is "hours worked" under FLSA? or What activities qualify as
"work"?
The courts
have held that work time under the FLSA includes all time spent
performing job-related activities which: (i) primarily benefit
the employer, (ii) which the employer "knows or has reason to
believe" are being performed by an employee, and (iii) which the
employer does not prohibit the employee from performing. The
activities performed during "off-the-clock" time can be "hours
worked."
Courts have
held that many activities including; the time spent
"off-the-clock" by employees donning and doffing clothes or
performing activities which are “integral and indispensable” to
the primary duties, such as logging into computer systems to
perform your work, working through meal periods, and other such
activities to be "hours worked" and therefore compensable time.
"Early to
Work" -- "Late after Work."
Employees must be paid FLSA overtime based on all the work they
actually do, including performing work ("suffered or permitted"
by the employer) outside of normal shift hours.
16. When
is overtime due?
For nonexempt
(hourly) employees, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires
overtime pay at a rate of not less than one and one-half times
an employee's regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a
workweek. Some
states also have enacted overtime laws. Where an employee is
subject to both the state and federal overtime laws, the
employee is entitled to overtime according to the higher
standard (i.e., the standard that will provide the higher rate
of pay).
17.
Do I have any
deadlines I need to worry about, or can I wait to see what
happens with this case?
Be very
careful. Under federal overtime law, employees are
generally not entitled to their lost overtime pay for hours they
worked more than two (or three) years ago. In other words, once
you join the lawsuit, you can only collect lost wages under
Federal Law for two (or three) years prior to that date, nothing
more. To stop this clock from running out on your claims and to
prevent yourself from losing any more money, you need to
join this lawsuit. If you decide to join this lawsuit, the
consent form should be mailed to the class counsel.
18.
How much
money would I be entitled to?
Based on the
information we have, we have estimated that each employee worked
at least 30-60 minutes each day for which he/she was not paid
the wages or overtime. Thus, you estimated recovery would be
the average time worked without pay times the number of days you
worked for Battelle in the past three years.
It would take a
detailed calculation based on the facts of your case to
determine how much you would be owed. Remember you will not be
represented and you will not be entitled to any money until you
join this lawsuit. You must take that step to get any
recovery and a Court will have to make a determination as to
whether you will be included in the action.
19. What
are the primary goals of this lawsuit?
Our primary goals
in this class action are to:
-
Recover unpaid
wages, overtime and other damages for employees who were not
properly paid for the time they worked.
-
To ensure that
Battelle pays its employees the proper wages and
overtime in the future.
20.
What are
liquidated damages?
The FLSA
provides that a successful plaintiffs are usually entitled to
double the amount of unpaid back wages, called "liquidated
damages." Essentially, liquidated damages are in lieu of
interest. An employer can avoid paying liquidated damages only
if it shows that it acted in good faith in failing to pay for
off the clock work, and that it had a reasonable basis to
believe that it need not pay for off the clock work. "Good
faith" has a special meaning under the FLSA, and requires that
employers have made specific investigation of the application of
the FLSA to particular types of employees. Liquidated damages
are the rule, not the exception. Employees are normally entitled
to liquidated damages.
21.
What if I
didn’t keep time records? Can I still recover? Or what if my
employer encouraged me to record less time than I worked on the
time cards?
Yes.
The law requires the employer to keep accurate records of the
number of hours an employee works. If the records are either not
accurate or not in existence, your reasonable estimate of the
number of hours you worked is taken as true. This means that the
amount you get is calculated by your reasonable estimate of the
hours you worked, not by what the employer thinks the employees
worked.
22.
My employer
did not pre-approve me for working overtime. However, I had to
work the extra time in order to get the job done, and my
employer permitted me to work the extra time. Am I still
entitled to lost overtime?
Yes. You are
owed this money even if you agreed to work this extra time, and
even if you did not expect to get paid for it. If the court
finds you performed overtime work for Battelle for which
you were not paid, it does not matter if you agreed to work the
extra time or not.
23.
What if I
knew I was not going to be paid for this time?
That does not
matter—you still need to be paid for it. The law requires that
you be paid for all time you are permitted to work. Therefore,
any type of work that Battelle simply allowed you to do,
you need to be paid for. This is true even if you agreed to work
this extra time without pay, or even if you knew you would not
get paid for it, or if Battelle said you would not be
paid for hours worked over 40 in a week.
24.
What if I
don’t have any time records to show how much time I worked?
You don’t need your time
records to be able to recover money. The law requires
that your employer keep accurate time records for the time you
worked. If the employer did not do that, your reasonable
testimony of the number of hours you worked will be used to
determine the amount you are owed.
25. When
I left the company, I signed an agreement releasing them from
certain types of claims. Does this mean I can’t get money in
this case?
No. Even if you
signed a release, you are entitled to recover the unpaid wages
you are owed under federal law. Therefore, you are free to join
the lawsuit.
26. How
do employees pay their FLSA lawyers?
This is
between the individual employees and the lawyers. Many FLSA
lawyers will take FLSA cases on some variation of a "contingency
fee." This usually means that the employees pay no legal fees
unless and until they win the case, and then fees are based on a
percentage of the amount recovered. Successful FLSA plaintiffs
are entitled to an attorneys' fee award from the employer in
addition to any other recovery. In this case, the Class Counsel
will be paid on the basis of a contingency fee agreement, and
will be paid a percentage of any recovery.
27. What
actual financial costs or risks are there for an employee to
bring an FLSA case?
This is
between the individual employees and the attorney. If the
employee hires attorneys on a contingency fee basis, there are
no "up front" expenses for legal fees or costs. The costs are
paid by the Class counsel.
28. What if
my address and/or telephone number changes?
If you join the
lawsuit by filing a consent form, you become a member of the
class in this lawsuit. If your address or telephone number
changes, please contact us immediately to update your address
and telephone number, please contact us at:
Attn: Battelle Class Counsel
Law Office of Jesse Brar, P.C.
670 East 3900 South, Suite 101
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
Telephone: 801-269-9541
Facsimile: 801-269-9581
Email:
jesse@battelleclassaction.com
29.
What if I
need more information or want to talk to the attorneys in
person?
If you have
any other questions you would like answers to, please contact
the
Class Counsel.
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