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Sky Chefs catering company is edging closer to a deal with current and former staff at Chicago O’Hare International Airport who alleged the company underpaid them overtime hours by rounding time worked before or after shifts.
The class action lawsuit filed by lead Plaintiff Larry Frisby on behalf of the workers says that the company made workers clock in five or six minutes before each shift and did not pay them for that time.
Instead, the class action says that Sky Chef would round up or down pre- and post-shift time, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and Illinois and Chicago laws. Sky Chef acted “typically to the detriment of the employee, and to the benefit of defendants,” Law360 reports. In the claim, Frisby said that he had worked more than 100 hours of unpaid overtime.
US District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly gave the $420,000 settlement agreement preliminary approval this week, saying that the deal would fairly resolve the Fair Labor Standards Act and Illinois and Chicago law violation claims.
The Fair Labor Standards Act allows employers to round workers’ start and stop times, but only if an employer still pays staff for time worked, Kennelly said.
Kennelly said in the order that settlement was a “fair, reasonable and adequate resolution of a bona fide dispute between the parties.”
The agreement submitted to Kennelly said that all parties “have entered into this settlement agreement with the intention to avoid further disputes and litigation based on disputed facts and allegations and to avoid the costs and risks of further litigation to all parties.”
Kennelly agreed to conditionally certify a Class of all current and former nonexempt, hourly paid employees who worked for Sky Chefs in Illinois for at least seven days since December 2016, and who hadn’t excluded themselves from the action.
According to Law360, the Class includes up to 2,186 individuals. Class representatives will receive $5,000, counsel will receive up to $139,000, and class members will split the remaining $276,000.
A hearing on final settlement approval and Class certification is scheduled for September.
In April, Sprint reached a $7.6 million class action settlement with employees who alleged that Sprint did not compensate non-exempt employees for all hours worked, arguing employees had worked off the clock to perform opening and closing procedures, attend mandatory conference calls, and perform other tasks.
Have you ever been shorted on overtime pay at your work? Let us know in the comments section!
Frisby is represented by Glen Joseph Dunn Jr. of Glen J. Dunn & Associates and Jeffrey Grant Brown of Jeffrey Grant Brown PC.
The Sky Chefs defendants are represented by Efrat R. Schulman and Katherine Stallings Bailey of Jones Day.The Sky Chefs Overtime Class Action Lawsuit is Frisby v. Sky Chefs Inc et al., Case No. 1:19-cv-07989, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
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