Employee wage lawsuits overview:
- Who: O’Reilly Auto, UPS, United Airlines and Dunkin’ Donuts are facing wage lawsuits filed by five current and former employees.
- Why: The plaintiffs allege the companies failed to pay overtime and, in some cases, denied meal and rest breaks or required unpaid off-the-clock work.
- Where: The wage lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts in Washington, Connecticut and Virginia.
- How to get help: If you live in California and were not properly paid for all hours worked, you may qualify to seek unpaid wages or back pay through a wage and hour lawsuit investigation.
A new round of wage lawsuits filed within about six weeks of each other accuses O’Reilly Auto, UPS, United Airlines and Dunkin’ Donuts of shortchanging workers on pay they say they were owed.
The UPS class action lawsuit, filed by two former hourly workers in Connecticut federal court, is the broadest of the four, covering hourly employees statewide and going back as far as six years.
The workers claim in the UPS class action that they underwent unpaid security screening before and after every shift. Workers had to wait in a security line, then walk to a separate time clock, a routine that allegedly took 15 to 30 minutes per shift, unpaid.
An O’Reilly Auto retail employee, on behalf of a proposed class covering the past three years, is suing the company for off-the-clock tasks like security sweeps and cash counts. The complaint also alleges the company failed to ensure staff could take required rest and meal breaks and argues the violations were a “low standard for willfulness” under Washington’s wage statutes.
Both lawsuits argue their employers established practices of failing to pay employees for time they were required to spend on the job and seek back pay and damages for their proposed classes.
United Airlines, Dunkin’ Donuts face wage lawsuits over skipped breaks, pay cuts
In Washington state court, a former United Airlines line technician, who alleges the airline failed to provide compliant meal and rest breaks and shorted overtime pay through time-rounding, seeks to represent a proposed statewide class of current and former employees.
Citing a state ruling, the proposed class action lawsuit says “30 minutes of wages is an appropriate measure of damages for such a deprivation” — pay it says the technician was denied for each skipped or shortened break.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, a former Dunkin’ Donuts store manager claims a franchise operator misclassified managers as exempt from overtime despite scheduling them for 50 to 60 hours a week, combining a federal Fair Labor Standards Act collective action with a Virginia state class action.
All four class action lawsuits allege the employers failed to track or compensate employees for time they actually worked, including time spent in screening lines, working through breaks or being misclassified. The lawsuits seek back pay and damages for the proposed classes.
Have you experienced similar wage and hour issues at your job? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiffs are represented by Erin M. O’Leary, Lauren N. Vega, Nicholas J. Ferraro and Theodore R. Braun of Ferraro Vega Employment Lawyers Inc; Zachary L. Rubin of ZLR Litigation PLLC; Don J. Foty of Foty Law Group P.C.; Gregg C. Greenberg of Zipin, Amster & Greenberg LLC; and Jamie K. Serb of Crosner Legal P.C.
The UPS class action lawsuit is Case No. 3:26-cv-01394, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut; the O’Reilly Auto class action lawsuit is Case No. 26-2-10333-5, in the Superior Court of Washington for Pierce County; the United Airlines proposed class action lawsuit is Case No. 26-2-24069-8 KNT, in the Superior Court of Washington for King County; and the Dunkin’ Donuts FLSA collective action is Case No. 3:26-cv-00896, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
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