Delta class action alleges employees who swap shifts don’t receive OT

Delta class action overview: 

• Who: Delta Air Lines is facing a class action lawsuit regarding failure to pay overtime to employees. 
• Why: Delta allows employees the freedom to swap shifts with colleagues but does not pay overtime when employees then work extra time during a work period.
• Where: The Delta employees lawsuit was filed in federal court in Atlanta.

Delta Air Lines is facing a class action lawsuit claiming that it does not pay overtime to employees who work extra time during a work period after swapping shifts with colleagues.

The Delta employees included in the class are customer service employees at airports across the United States, reservation and sales representatives who perform customer service duties from call center locations across the United States and tower coordinators who work at Delta’s eight hubs across the United States.

That proposed class thus includes tens of thousands of Delta employees who have not received overtime pay and easily exceeds the $5 million sum required for the class action to be certified. 

Delta breached employees’ contract when swapped off time not counted, per lawsuit

When an employee swaps off a shift, that shift is still worked and Delta receives employee labor for the shift, the lawsuit says. Under the employee contract, swaps do not count toward overtime and even working more because of a swap does not result in overtime pay.

“This restriction makes some sense because,” the lawsuit says, “if overtime is defined as work performed in excess of one’s scheduled hours, then a swapped shift, definitionally, is not an overtime shift, as a swapped shift is merely a reallocated scheduled shift.”

The lawsuit says, however, that the contract breach occurs when an employee swaps off a shift and then ultimately works additional hours during that period and the employee does not receive overtime pay. In that case, Delta treats the swapped off work as unpaid time.

“The use of the passive voice in the language of the Overtime Contract makes clear that in calculating overtime eligibility for employees, what matters is whether an employee’s scheduled hours in a given work period were worked, not whether they were the one working them,” the Delta class action says.

Delta Air Lines agreed to a now-closed class action lawsuit settlement to resolve claims it breached its ticket contracts by refusing to refund flights that were canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Have you ever worked overtime and not been compensated appropriately? Let us know in the comments.

The plaintiff is represented by Anna Claire Skinner, Adam J. Levitt, Daniel R. Ferri, Laura E. Reasons and Jeremy Levine-Drizin of Dicello Levitt LLP.

The Delta class action lawsuit is Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-05712-TWT, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division.

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