New York, NY: Candy maker Russell Stover is facing an unpaid overtime class action, stemming from allegations the company purposely mislabeled employees as sales representatives, thereby making the employees exempt from receiving overtime.
Filed by nine Russell Stover' employees, the lawsuit claims the employees were falsely classified as 'sales representative,' when none of them worked primarily sales, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) : the lawsuit contends that the majority of sales do not originate with these employees. Based in Missouri, Russell Stover has some 5,000 employees, including about 170 sales representatives, according to the lawsuit.
One of the plaintiffs in the unpaid overtime class action, Cheryl Carter, a former sales representative, worked for the company from May 2005 to December 2012. She alleges the majority of her duties were "primarily" manual labor and that she "regularly" worked overtime but never received compensation for that overtime. The plaintiffs allege that most of the time sales representatives' duties included receiving shipments, inspecting, unpacking, stocking, cleaning, processing credits and repairing display fixtures.
Further, the plaintiffs, four of whom no longer work for the company while five do, claim that Russell Stover made "a fictitious calculation" of 40 hours worked per week, when they regularly worked much more. The allegations are that the Russell Stover violated the FLSA for many years, and continues to do so.
