AT&T and its subsidiaries BellSouth Telecommunications Co, and Pacific Bell Telephone Co, are facing class action lawsuits alleging that they withheld as much as $1 billion in overtime wages from over 5000 first level managers who worked for PacBell in the states in which BellSouth does business.
BellSouth's nine-state region consists of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Kentucky. Other states where the phone company does business may also involved, including Oregon.
The suits charge AT&T with violating the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), as well as California State Laws by implementing a policy that deliberately misclassified thousands of level one managers throughout the company as being exempt from overtime wages. Further, the suits claim that managers were not provided with mandatory meal and rest breaks, nor were accurate records of employees' hours kept. Specifically, the lawsuit states that "Since at least 2006, Defendant has willfully committed widespread violations of the FLSA by forcing similarly-situated Level Ones to work off-the-clock without compensation." The "Off-the-clock" class consists of "All First Level (or Level One Managers) employed by BellSouth from December 2006 and thereafter who were assigned technicians as direct reports and who were classified by the company as non-exempt employees under the FLSA."
The lawsuit also states, "Since at least 2007, Defendant has willfully committed widespread violations of the FLSA by misclassifying all similarly-situated Level Ones as salaried exempt employees regardless of their actual duties and responsibilities. In actuality, the members of the Plaintiff collective class are not exempt from the wage and hour laws...The misclassification class is the following: All First Level (or Level One Managers) employed by BellSouth from December 2006 and thereafter who were assigned technicians as direct reports and who were classified by the company as exempt employees under the FLSA."
