Employee Says Advantage Sales And Marketing Violates California Overtime Laws

An employee of Advantage Sales and Marketing says that the company violates California overtime laws by improperly categorizing Customer Development Managers as exempt from overtime pay.

Plaintiff Wilma F. claims that she has been employed by Advantage Sales and Marketing LLC since April 14, 2016 and became a Customer Development Manager in December 2016, and is still in that role. She says that her territory covers the area of Hayward, Calif.

The company provides retail delivery and management services for retail stores and delivers the products to the client. Wilma says that the company employs CDMs like herself to be responsible for inventory and advertising display at their clients’ retail locations. 

Wilma also says that the CDMs are divided into teams that focus on certain products, and that her group focuses on Gatorade and Quaker products. She says that “the principal job duties Gatorade CDMs are to make sure that their assigned products are properly stocked, priced, and displayed within the shelf space at each of the CDMs’ assigned stores.” Allegedly, the CDMs also occasionally engage in product sales conversations with retail managers.

The California overtime laws class action lawsuit says Advantage classifies the CDMs as exempt from overtime pay, meaning that even if they work more than 40 hours in a week, they do not receive overtime pay. However, Wilma argues that the type of work that the CDMs perform should make them eligible for overtime pay under the regulations set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code.

Wilma notes that the CDMs perform principally manual labor. Allegedly, the CDMs “do not exercise any independent judgment in carrying out duties, which are instead dictated and monitored by supervisors based on directives from executive personnel of Advantage.” She argues that jobs exempt from overtime pay should not be manual labor jobs, and should instead be jobs in which an employee exercises independent judgment in their professional capacity, as in managerial or executive positions.

The California overtime laws class action lawsuit says that classifying the CDM roles as exempt from overtime is inappropriate because such a classification is designed for roles with more independence.

In contrast, she argues that the CDMs should have been paid for overtime, in the amount of one and a half times their normal rate for every hour worked past 40 hours in any given week. She also says that CDMs were not given paid meal breaks, as mandated by California overtime laws.

Wilma says that she and all other CDMs were financially injured by Advantage Sales and Marketing’s choice to classify CDMs as exempt from overtime when they should have been classified as non-exempt. She seeks to have the company be required to reclassify CDMs as non-exempt, and to pay all CDMs what they should have been paid in overtime or wages for meal breaks that should have been paid, to compensate them for previous financial injury allegedly done by the company’s policy.

The California Overtime Laws Advantage Sales and Marketing Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 4:18-cv-07205, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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