Who do we have that is a Lawyer? Have a question if you have a moment please.

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Ford SportTrac Forum

Help Support Ford SportTrac Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
K

Kevin Palmer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2001
Messages
9,349
Reaction score
3
Location
Madison, OH
I'm not in trouble, need no legal representation, nothing negative at all. The agency I work for is being sued for money owed to thousands of us, (over time issue). For some legal reason, it can not go on as a class action suit. It is being converted to a (forgot the name of it) but the same as a class action suit but we must opt in. Has something to do with the type of employees that we are.



Basically, if you are willing to look at a couple of emails for me it would help me make a more informed decision. Thanks much in advance...
 
Not me, But my uncle Vinny is a lawyer back home ......:D:D:D

 
coastie,



assuming that you don't know this, when you actually may, I have dealt with labor law in the state of SC. When you say "thousands of us" the problem you may have getting an answer is finding someone on here who 1. knows your state specific labor laws if its state problems, or 2. knowing the federal laws applicable to your situation. I have had to deal with several employee law suits through the Human Affairs Division of the state and through the bigginning of possible litigation. Anyway, just thought I would throw that in there to you. Hopefully, you will be able to get someone to help you.



James
 
Johnny, I was doing my best out of memory.. LOL



James. I agree. But it is not that kind of question. It will have nothing to do with the state or anything like that. In fact, it is Federal, but it has nothing to do with that either.



We have to opt in as opposed to we were in under the class action automatically before. Just wanting to know their thoughts on it is all...
 
Coastiejoe,

I am not an attorney, but I suspect the employee types you are talking about are Exempt and Non-Exempt employees.



Exempt employees are usually not paid an hourly rate and are exempt from overtime pay. If you work 50 or 60 hours or more per week, that's part of your job.



Non-Exempt employees are paid an hourly rate, and must be payed for overtime based on how it's defined by the employer. The employers usuall define overtime as more than 8 hours per day, more than 40 hours per week,. or more than 80 per 2 week pay period. Most employers opt for the longer periods of one week or two weeks so that they have time to give the employee who is accruing overtime, to take some time off so that they don't meet the overtime quilifications.



I think the reason it cannot be a class action suit is because it may be a violation of the federal labor laws. I know most government employees that I worked with while I was in the Army in Washington, DC had to be given comp-time off within the pay-period (2 weeks) or they were automatically paid for their overtime. Most wanted to be paid, but the government preferred that they take the time off.



Hope that helps,



...Rich Lunder

 
Rich, not perfect but pretty near. That is exactly what they discovered, hence the change on how the suit is being handled.



With the class action we were all in by default. Not that it is an opt in, they want/need us to sign on. As well as front 100 dollars per to over various filing fees and some of their labor. Could care less about the 100 dollars.



I am concerned about signing on. My concern, the agency may have this info available to them. Concerned about suffering repercussions simply for signing on.



That are filing it as John Doe type claim as far as the documents that are available to the agency. This is something I am not familiar with. Just trying to get insight from others.



In our case. We are paid for 10 hours every day. If we work more, no additional pay. Less than 10, still get the 10. How it was suppose to be, schedule us for 8 hours. If we work up to 10 due to delays or weather for example nothing lost as the paid us to 10 hours. But.... they schedule us for ten hours and we get nothing after the 10th hours. Very common to work 12 hours or even more if there is a weather issue. So that is what it is based on...



Thanks.
 
Coastie,



Now that you have stated part of the issue I can tell you this, employees must meet certain requirements to be considered exempt from overtime. What you are describing I have never heard of before. It does not sound as though they are trying to excempt you from overtime, it sounds more like they are saying, "ok, we pay you sometimes for more than you work and don't pay you for other times that you do work, so it should work out. " In all of my dealings in HR issues in management I have never seen anything like that. As far as repercussions, as you know that would be illegal, however, you would not be the first one who has been fired for "other reasons" while in a suit.



Man, glad I am not in your shoes. Sorry about the problem.
 
I am paid well enough that I seriously don't care if anything was to ever come from this. But,,, if my 3500 other comrades get it I might as well too. LOL



Hard to turn down free money. And in reality it is not free, I worked it. But I don't have it so as far as I am concerned, If I get any of it then I did good..
 
I'm an attorney, not in your state, but if you want to send me the info, I'll take a look and offer some general opinions. Most of my work is in the commercial, internet, and privacy areas.
 
Seems that collective bargaining might come into play here as well. If several employees get together on this issue, seems there might be some additional nuances?
 
Kevin,

It sounds like they are paying you on an hourly basis (Non-Exempt), but are arranging your schedule to avoid paying you overtime. It may make scheduling easier for the Government, and You may like that situation, however it may violate the way the Federal Government defines how all Government employee's are supposed to be paid.



An employer can define overtime as any time over 8 hours per day. They can also say overtime is any time over 40 hours per week or any time over 80 hours in 2 weeks. So if you work 10 hours one day but you do not work more than 40 hours that week, then you are not eligable for 2 hours overtime pay for the one day you worked 10 hours.



I think the government has problems scheduling you for a flat 8 hour day or even a 10 hour day since airline schedules change and there are many flight delays due to weather, etc. I know since I was a road warrior (consultant) and would put on about 100K air miles in 6 months.



As for class action suits? I have been envolved in about 3 of them. The last one was about 7-8 years ago involving the way State Farm Insurance in Texas handled and paid Uninsured Motoris accidents. After over nine months of filling out claim forms and even going to Dallas to testify before a panel of 3 judges and about 10 lawyers, I got nothing.



Even though the documents indicated that State Farm was required to pay a minimum of $5000 property damage for each accident involving an unisured motorist, and even more if there were injuries sustained in the accident. My claim involved my daughter who got rearended by uninsured Mexican national (he had a legal green card) Her neck was injured and State Farm only paid the initial $2500 for no-fault PIP (Personal Injury Protection) and my daughter stopped going to the Doctory because State Farm said it would not pay for anymore treatments.



Personally, if you have no complaints about how you are paid, I would not give $100 to those blood sucking lawyers. I don't think they can sue the federal government in a class action suit a federal judge will not have the federal government put up the money to pay for the attorney fees, that's why they want you to pay them up front, and nothing is likely to happen so they won't get any more money.



...Rich













 
I am not an attorney to start off with. I do know that there has been a lot of noise recently about 'salaried' and Exempt vs non-exempt. Many employers simply went by the rule that if you were salaried you were automatically exempt. It turns out that is not correct unless a bargaining contract specified it was OK to make that decision.



It turns out that in order for you to be exempt, your salary must be above approx. 80K (this amount was from a couple of years ago and may be higher now). Also, you had to have a position where your decisions while at work couild affect your pay (commissions, etc), OR you had to have a management position where other employess reported to you. You couldn't just have a title that said manager to try and skirt the requirement. I believe there were some oither poInts as well but I can't recall them right now.



Good lick with this Kevin and I hope you score big with it (even though it is my taxes paying the salary. LOL ;)
 
Coastiejoe,



I worked a printing plant and something like this happened when a person was fired and went to the labor board. We would work on a Saturday before to be off the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the lobar board stepped in the company had no option except to go back and pay over time wages to everyone that had worked more than 40 hours in one week including those employees that no longer worked there. The owner asked if we would donate the money back since we did not acually earn it, needless to say no one donated it back. As far as I know there was no suit filed. It was just a violation of labor laws.
 
The owner asked if we would donate the money back since we did not acually earn it, needless to say no one donated it back.
Click to expand...



What, the owner had the nerve to say you didn't earn it?



Glad I have a card in my pocket that prevents that crap from happening to me or my workmates.





Tom
 
I opted in to a Special Rates Settlement for a rate dispute from 20 years ago when the Reagan Administration thought engineers and architects did not deserve higher rates than General Schedule and stopped step increases until salaries were equalized. The Court felt otherwise and ordered the Government to pay back salaries plus interest. Quite a nice check I received last year. Though I was a mere intern at the time, the actual pay was meager but the interest sure was a surprise. No one I know sufferred any repercussions as the payment went to a trustee and the trustee disbursed to all that opted in. Part of the opting in was certification of your employment status to determine elegibility. I believe the opting in was also a vehicle for reparations since my initial employment included statement that I would not sue the government. I did not, however have to pay any fee to recover this. The Attorneys fees were part of the settlement. The only revenge was when the IRS considered this as taxable income. OPting in 5 years ago sure didn't hurt my career. As a senior manager now, I do review applications for employment and write performance appraisals, I can say I have not found any vehicle s on GSA forms to allow for retribution for this action. However, having a vindictive arbitrary adversary in an influential position is a different story and the best thing to do there is to document incidents thoroughly. You might want to consult with your AFGE rep on this. Best of luck to you Kevin.
 

Latest posts

Top