Lowe’s Former Managers File Lawsuit Questioning Who is Entitled to Overtime Pay

Lowe’s is facing a class action lawsuit filed by managers who claim any manager who is entitled to overtime pay has not been receiving it under certain circumstances.

The plaintiffs claim Lowe’s allegedly forces hourly managers to work 40 hours a week in addition to overtime hours, but refuses to pay them for all their hours worked.

According to the wage and hour class action lawsuit as reported by The State, “Plaintiffs and hourly managers spend significant time performing this off-the-clock work, but defendants do not compensate them for it. Because much of this time qualifies as overtime within the meaning of applicable federal and state laws, plaintiffs and hourly managers are owed overtime pay for this uncompensated, off-the-clock work.”

Who is Entitled to Overtime Pay?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employees who are paid hourly must receive overtime pay for any hours worked past 40 in a regular work week. Overtime pay must be paid at a rate of not less than one and one-half times the employee’s regular hourly rate of pay.

The FLSA clarifies that hours worked include the time during which the employee is required to be on the employer’s premises or on duty.

Workers covered by overtime protection are also known as non-exempt employees. Executives and professionals are generally exempt employees. Exempt employees are not entitled to overtime pay.

According to the Lowe’s overtime lawsuit, hourly managers were required to perform some of their duties off the clock. Lowe’s allegedly required some managers to arrive early to drive through the property in their own vehicles to check the area before opening time. Certain managers were allegedly instructed they had to read and respond to work emails during their lunch breaks and other unpaid time. They had to use their own smartphones to read and reply to these emails if they were not near a computer or laptop.

The complaint cites alarming and disarming the store’s alarm system as another duty managers must complete on a daily basis while off the clock.

One former Lowe’s manager from a store in Raleigh, N.C. said he was should have received overtime pay of $39.04 per hour for 160 to 215 minutes of overtime he put in during a two-week pay period.

When asked for a comment on the Lowe’s overtime lawsuit, the company sent an email to news outlets saying, “Lowe’s has no comment about this pending litigation at this time.”

Lowe’s is second only to Home Depot among the nationwide home improvement retail stores. The company released sales figures stating it had recorded sales of $7.3 billion for 2018. Lowe’s employs nearly 300,000 people throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recovered a record $304 million in wages that were owed to workers in fiscal year 2018. The WHD says it has helped more than 1.3 million workers recover more than $1.3 billion in lost wages over the last five years. In many cases, disagreements over who is entitled to overtime pay affects the outcome of the investigations.

Join a Free Assistant Manager Overtime Pay Lawsuit Investigation

If you work or worked as an assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant, retail store or supermarket and you perform the same duties as the hourly employees, you may have been misclassified as exempt and are owed unpaid overtime pay.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.