Frito-Lay Settles Overtime Pay Case

Frito-Lay has just agreed to pay a $1.6 million to settle and wage and hour lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former employees. The employees involved in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) lawsuit were in charge of delivering Frito-Lay products to store and arranging in-store displays.

The employees alleged that the company failed to pay them for all their time worked, including overtime. The workers also claimed that they were not compensated for time spent working through meal periods and lunch breaks. Pursuant to the FLSA, non-exempt employees are entitled to overtime pay at a rate of one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of forty in any one work week. If you have questions about the FLSA or and other wage and hour concern, it’s important to consult with a knowledgeable Atlanta overtime pay attorney right away.

Even though FLSA provisions sound straightforward, they are far from simple. In fact, the overtime laws are incredibly complex, and employers often inadvertently – or purposefully – fail to pay all the overtime to employees that they should. As a result, unpaid overtime is one of the most frequent sources of employee complaints, and overtime class action cases are probably the fastest growing type of employment litigation in our federal court system.

If you believe that you have been denied overtime or that your employer has committed some other violation of the wage and hour laws, you don’t have to file an EEOC claim as you would in a typical discrimination case. Instead, you can hire a private attorney and file suit as soon as you discover the violation. If other people at your company have also been denied overtime, you may be able to file a special type of FLSA class action, known as a collective action, which will help you bring the maximum pressure to bear on your employer to change its ways and to pay you all the compensation you are owed.

In this instance the employees of Frito-Lay alleged that the company calculated overtime pay “using an illegal fluctuating workweek rather than … a forty hours workweek.” Because of the “fluctuating workweek” pay schedule, employees ended up getting paid less for overtime and they were also deprived of “the ability to take timely breaks free from work obligations.”

While Frito-Lay denies liability, it agreed to pay $1 million to close to 4,000 employees to settle the case.

For more information about the FLSA or if you have a wage and hour question, please contact the experienced Georgia overtime attorneys Buckley Bala Wilson Mew LLP for an immediate case evaluation.