Employees Claim T-Mobile Retailer Required Work Without Breaks

A retailer for T-Mobile is facing a class action legal claim from two former employees who allege they were expected to work without breaks and without pay.

Plaintiffs Raquel Saucedo and Jonathan Martinez say that while they worked for defendant Wireless Vision LLC, they were required to work outside of the time they spent on the clock, both before and after their actual work shifts as well as work through breaks on which they were supposed to be clocked out.

They claim the store required employees to work during these times as a matter of store policy.

Workers Expected to Work Without Breaks

According to their wage and hour class action lawsuit. the two named plaintiffs and other employees were expected to work without breaks throughout the entire shift, including during on-the-clock and off-the-clock break time.

Employees were allegedly not allowed to take paid 15-minute rest breaks.

They also allege they were required to clock out during meal breaks, then keep working without being compensated for that time. They say they were made to work without breaks for over seven and a half hours at a time.

The plaintiffs also allege employees were expected do several kinds of work-related tasks outside their shift times and without compensation.

Before clocking in for the day, workers were expected to clean, gather supplies, prepare equipment, and confer with supervisors, the plaintiffs say. Then after clocking out, they say they were expected to stay at the job site tending to other work-related tasks, sometimes for several hours.

Martinez claims that on a regular basis, his unpaid work hours added up to at least 20 hours per week.

Saucedo claims unpaid work time of about eight hours per week. Martinez further alleges that when he worked more than 40 hours in a week, the store owners reduced his documented hours to below 40 – cutting out hours that might have qualified for a higher rate of overtime pay.

The two plaintiffs are claiming Wireless Vision’s actions violate the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law and the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act.

While federal law does not require employers to provide short rest breaks, generally it does treat these breaks as time that is compensable just as if the employee kept working.

Breaks of up to 20 minutes may be considered a compensable rest break. Bona fide meal periods, typically of 30 minutes or more, are not considered compensable under federal law.

Wireless Vision operates over 250 T-Mobile retail locations, according to the plaintiffs. T-Mobile is also a named defendant in this wage and hour class action lawsuit.

The two former employees are seeking compensation for unpaid wages from regular time and overtime, and from having to work without breaks. They also seek statutory damages and penalties, as well as reimbursement of court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Saucedo and Martinez are represented by attorneys Glen J. Dunn Jr., Angel Petrov Bakov and Haig A. Himidian of Glen J. Dunn & Associates Ltd., and by Jeffrey Grant Brown of Jeffrey Grant Brown PC.

The T-Mobile Retailer Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit is Martinez et al v. T-Mobile Ltd. et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-07020, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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