California Wage and Hour Class Action Filed over McDonald’s Unpaid Wages

Fast food giant McDonald’s is facing a California wage and hour class action lawsuit from over a thousand employees alleging the company failed to pay proper wages and denied overtime.

Recently, the class of workers had urged a California judge to add claims of withheld meal breaks to fairly represent the workers.

The class also argued these additional charges will not be prejudicial to McDonald’s, and will be necessary for the large size of their class.

The class action lawyers involved are urging Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ann I. Jones to allow the plaintiff to file an additional motion to include those claims.

The McDonald’s unpaid wages allegations have negatively impacted numerous employees who allege they were not paid for all hours worked and were not paid overtime hourly rates.

Overview of McDonald’s Unpaid Wages Class Action Lawsuit

The class of workers includes thousands of overnight shift employees, who claim the fast food giant had tried to dodge paying overtime by splitting those overnight shifts into two separate shifts.

These shifts would end and start at midnight, continuously adding to the McDonald’s unpaid wages.

In addition, the class action attorneys point out that the employees were not compensated for off-the-clock work like washing their uniforms and forcing employees to stay in the restaurant throughout the night due to safety reasons.

According to the California wage and hour class action lawsuit, employees were denied meal breaks and rest periods with the company failing to pay for overtime and not listing all hours worked on pay stubs.

Judge Jones had declined to add the claims, due to the plaintiffs reportedly failing to give proper notice in their opening class certification brief.

In addition, the legal experts involved in the case noted the addition of these claims would not make any significant changes in the judgment summary.

However class action lawyers argued that these claim would ensure the rights of potential class members.

McDonald’s representatives argued that the plaintiffs were unreasonably delaying the court by trying to add the additional charges of missed meal breaks to their alleged McDonald’s unpaid wages claims.

The California wage and hour class action lawsuit was first filed in January 2013 by plaintiff Maria Sanchez, who had initially filed the claim over alleged McDonald’s unpaid wages.

Just a year later, her lawsuit had evolved into a coordinated movement with other employment class action movements against McDonald’s restaurants.

She and other claimants allege the fast food giant had its managers alter time cards to omit some of the hours worked off time cards, along with failing to pay overtime, denying meal breaks and rest periods, and other minimum wage violations.

The McDonald’s California wage and hour class action lawsuit further alleged there was a company-wide policy of reducing labor costs, by requiring restaurants to base the labor costs on the percentage of gross sales.

This had reportedly forced managers to violate state and federal labor law by adhering to the alleged McDonald’s unpaid wages policy, by altering time cards and denying overtime.

The McDonald’s Unpaid Wages California Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit is Maria Sanchez et al. v. McDonald’s Restaurants of California Inc. et al., Case No. BC499888, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.

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