Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
It is a common practice for retail stores to check the bags of their employees for merchandise that the employees might be trying to take home with them illegally. However, since these bag checks are required by the employer, the employees must be paid for all of the time spent having their bags checked and waiting in line, if necessary. While this time may be only a few minutes, it can add up, day after day, to a significant loss of wages on the part of the employees. Several retail stores have already faced wage and hour class action lawsuits from employees who were not compensated for the time that they spent waiting to have their bags checked. Now Urban Outfitter is the latest retail store to face a lawsuit for allegedly failing to pay employees for the time it took to have their bags checked before they were allowed to leave.
According to the lead plaintiff, Zayda Santizo, she was allegedly a non-exempt hourly employee at Urban Outfitters and yet she and other hourly employees were allegedly required to have their bags checked outside of their normal schedules. While employees who qualify for one of the overtime exempt categories under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are required to stay until their work is done, however long that takes, all hourly employees must be paid the overtime rate of one and one-half times their normal hourly rate for all time that they spend working in excess of eight hours a day or forty hours a week. According to this most recent wage and hour lawsuit, the hourly non-exempt employees at Urban Outfitters allegedly were required by their employer to stay overtime to have their bags checked, but allegedly were not paid the proper overtime rate.
The complaint alleges that the paystubs issued by Urban Outfitters were inaccurate because they allegedly did not reflect the time spent by employees waiting to have their bags checked. Under the FLSA, failure to provide employees with pay stubs which accurately reflect the time spent working and the wages earned by the employee is subject to certain penalties.
In addition to these alleged violations of the FLSA, the wage and hour class action lawsuit also alleges that Urban Outfitters violated certain state statutes as laid out by California labor law.
The wage and hour lawsuit is seeking certification of three sub-classes of current and former employees of Urban Outfitters. The first proposed sub-class includes all employees who worked for Urban Outfitters “at any time beginning four years prior to the filing of the complaint through the date notice is mailed to the class.” According to the complaint, an estimated 400 employees allegedly have the potential to be eligible to fit into this first sub-class.
The second proposed subclass includes all workers “whose employment by [Urban Outfitters] ended within three years of filing the complaint.” The third proposed sub-class includes all workers “whose employment with [Urban Outfitters] included any period of time during the period beginning one year from the date of the filing of this action.” The complaint estimates at least 200 employees have the potential to allegedly qualify for one of these last two sub-classes.
The Illinois class action attorneys at Nationwide Consumer Rights are investigating unpaid overtime claims against hospitals, senior and assisted living centers and large doctor and dental practices and chains for erasing or altering time sheets or time records, pressuring workers not to report or record overtime, and otherwise failing to pay workers for overtime and other wages. If you are the victim this practice call us at 630-333-0333 or contact us online by filling in the form at the side of this blog.
The Chicago unpaid overtime lawyers at Nationwide Consumer Rights have decades of experience fighting for wage earner’s rights. Our unpaid overtime law firm has a team of Chicago area attorneys who focus on nationwide class action lawsuits and work out of Chicago and Oak Brook offices. We prosecute claims for workers all over the Chicago area including Waukegan and Bartlett. We protect unpaid workers who haven’t received overtime throughout the Chicago area including in DuPage, McHenry Kane and Cook Counties.
Our Orland Park and Palos Hills overtime lawyers are intimately familiar with the issues that arise during wage claim litigation, and we know the laws that govern overtime cases well. Many employers misclassify employees as being exempt from overtime laws and pay workers salaries instead of hourly wages in order to avoid paying them overtime. Some employers mistakenly classify employees as exempt and others intentionally do so in order to circumvent the law. In either case, workers do not receive the wages they should, and a lawsuit may be the only way to recover their earned wages.
Nationwide Consumer Rights is based in Chicago and Oakbrook Terrace. We represent clients throughout the country who have not been paid for the overtime hours that they worked. If you believe that you are owed overtime wages, contact one of our Chicago class action attorneys by phone at 630-333-0333 or through our online form.