The international telemarketing firm headquartered in Pennsylvania that has operated telemarketing call centers in Martinsburg, Falling Waters, Westover, and Parkersburg West Virginia since the early 1990s, has agreed to pay $14.75 million dollars to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay its nearly 12,000 West Virginia current and former employees all wages and other earnings due to them.
The suit was originally filed in October 1998 in Berkeley County, West Virginia. The lead plaintiff, William Shingleton, was employed as a telemarketer at ICT's call center in Martinsburg. Mr. Shingleton alleged that ICT routinely failed to pay him and other employees for all of their work time. It was alleged that ICT intentionally deleted or withheld time from its employees by secretly manipulating the company's computerized timekeeping systems in violation of West Virginia law. The suit covers persons who were employed by the company in West Virginia as telemarketers from April 1, 1994 through October 10, 2002. The plaintiffs are represented by a team of three law firms from Martinsburg: Power, Beck & Matzureff; Hammer, Ferretti & Schiavoni; and the Law Offices of Harry P. Waddell.
The settlement, which is subject to court approval at a hearing to be held on June 27, 2005 in Martinsburg, was reached after more than six years of intensive litigation. Judge Christopher Wilkes ruled that ICT failed to pay its employees as required by the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collect Act by unlawfully deducting time from employees pay and for failing to disclose those deductions to employees. The Wage Payment Act requires employers to pay current employees' wages in full each pay period and pay all wages due to any former employees within certain specified times after a worker leaves his employment. [EMAIL LAW FIRM]
