Overtime Pay Rules Violated, Claims Former Chipotle Management Trainee

A former manager trainee employed at Chipotle Mexican Grill is seeking class certification in a lawsuit claiming violations of overtime pay rules.

Plaintiff Carmen A. claims that she and others were misclassified as exempt from overtime, required to work in excess of 40 hours per week without proper compensation as defined by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The Complaint

Carmen says she worked for two different Chipotle restaurants between August 2016 to March of 2017 as an “apprentice.” Chipotle classifies these apprentices as “executives” or “administrative” workers; as such, they would be exempt from state and federal overtime pay rules. Because of this, Carmen says she and other “apprentices” were not paid the overtime premium of time-and-a-half for hours worked in excess of 40 per week.

This practice allegedly continued from the time Carmen began her employment with Chipotle until mid-November when the restaurant converted apprentices to hourly workers and began paying overtime in keeping with FLSA overtime pay rules. Just over a week later, a federal court in Texas stopped the Department of Labor from enforcing those rules.

The ruling gave Chipotle a reason to convert its hourly apprentices back to a salaried basis. According to an email sent to all restaurants: “In mid-November, we converted Apprentices to hourly in order to comply with the FSLA changes…since the court blocked the anticipated changes from taking effect, we will convert Apprentices back to salaried exempt…[they] should be scheduled according to the needs of the restaurant, which is expected to result in a 50-hour week on average.”

Only Enforcement was Enjoined – Not Overtime Pay Rules

Carmen argues that the Texas court did not prevent the rules from going into effect and that the Texas court’s ruling was limited to enforcement of the rules by the DOL. Nonetheless, starting on December 12th of 2016 and continuing through March, Carmen says she did not receive the overtime pay to which she was entitled under the FSLA and New Jersey state law.

Her complaint says that although apprentices were classified as “managers,” they were required to provide customer service, take orders and prepare food through most of their shifts as well as other tasks normally carried out by hourly employees. However, their duties allegedly did not include making hiring and firing decisions, writing up schedules or administering discipline as would be the case for an overtime-exempt, salaried worker working the position in question.

In other words, according to Carmen’s complaint, they were managers in name only. She is now petitioning the court for class action status. As the representative of a Class, she would represent all affected Chipotle employees outside of California, New York and Texas who were Chipotle employees from Dec. 12, 2016 and were paid under $47,476 annually.

Who is Non-Exempt From Overtime Pay Rules?

By definition, a manager engages in supervisory tasks, such as setting schedules, making hiring and firing decisions, and filling out evaluations. However, many of these workers wind up doing customer service, cleaning chores, stocking shelves and similar tasks. These are not managerial jobs, though. Even if a worker is called a “manager,” they may have grounds for additional compensation if they spend more than 40 hours per week engaged in such tasks and, as of Jan. 1, 2020, are paid less than $648 per week.

The Chipotle Misclassification Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-04095, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

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