Wage Theft Lawsuit Alleges Call Center Employees Worked off the Clock

A wage theft lawsuit has been filed by a woman who claims a drug company required call centers to work an extra 10 to 15 minutes every work day without pay.

Plaintiff Syrria Williams filed a proposed class action wage theft lawsuit last week, alleging defendant AmerisourceBergen violated the Fair Labor Standards Act in its call centers.

Williams alleges she and other similarly situated employees were expected to arrive to work early to boot up their computers, start software programs and read emails before taking their first calls. Call center employees were expected to be ready to take their first call at the precise start of their shifts.

Williams worked in Amerisource Bergen’s Naperville, Il. call center from 2014 to 2016 where she was paid $17.50 per hour. She claims the extra 10 to 15 minutes a day that she was required to work without pay equals about an hour per week of time that she donated to the company.

“The net effect of Defendant’s policies and practices, instituted and approved by company managers, is that Defendant willfully failed to pay regular and overtime compensation to Plaintiff and others similarly situated, and willfully failed to keep accurate time records to save payroll costs,” says the wage theft lawsuit. “Defendant thus enjoyed ill-gained profits at the expense of its hourly employees.”

Wage Theft Lawsuit Accuses Managers of Seeing Employees Work for No Pay

Williams’ wage theft lawsuit accuses the company of knowing the call center employees were working before and after their scheduled start and end times.

“Defendant’s managers on the call center floor could and did regularly see with their own eyes that Plaintiff and similarly situated telephone-based employees arrived at their work stations before the start of their scheduled shift time, logged into Defendant’s computers, and began working on their computers prior to the start of their scheduled shift time,” the complaint said.

“Despite seeing and knowing that Plaintiff and similarly situated telephone-based employees performed work at their work stations prior to their scheduled shift time start, Defendant and its managers on the floor of the call center did not make any effort to stop or otherwise disallow this pre-shift work and instead allowed and permitted it to happen.”

Williams alleges that computer monitoring software allowed AmerisourceBergen to track what employees were doing online at all times, including the amount of time the employees were working. The wage theft lawsuit alleges the company easily had the means to pay employees for the entire time they worked.

“By possessing, controlling and/or accessing this information, Defendant knew that Plaintiff and similarly situated telephone-based employees worked prior to the start of their scheduled shift time,” says the wage theft lawsuit.

In addition to allegations the company violated federal law, AmerisourceBergen is accused of violating the Illinois Minimum Wage Law and the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act.

The Wage Theft Lawsuit is Syrria Williams v. AmericsourceBergen Drug Corporation, Case No. 1:17-cv-06071 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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