Legal news article for Illinois employment law attorneys. Three former Home Depot assistant managers claim they were denied overtime pay.
Illinois employment law attorneys alerts- Home Depot stores failed to pay assistant managers the U.S. Department of Labor mandated overtime wages.
Chicago, IL—Three former employees of the U.S.-based home improvement company, Home Depot, have file a lawsuit claiming the retailer failed to pay earned overtime wages for the past three years. The group of former assistant managers at an Illinois Home Depot store filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, as reported by Reuters.
The three former assistant managers accused Home Depot for knowingly misclassifying managers as being exempt from overtime. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they were illegally deprived of earned wages when the retailer required them to work up to 55 hours a week. They claim they were never issued payment for the time they worked over 40 hours. The claimants also accused Home Depot of having policies, which terminate assistant store managers and reduce their salaries if they fail to work the required 11-hour minimum shift in which they were routinely scheduled. The plaintiffs stated this is a regular practice at the 57 Illinois Home Depot centers, which affected all of their assistant managers within the last three years. According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) http://www.dol.gov and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay”. The former employees are seeking class action status. Home Depot stated they could not comment on this matter because they have yet to see the lawsuit.
According to Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org Home Depot operates 2,193 stores across all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, and China. Home Depot is the largest home-improvement retailer in the United States, which sells products and offers services ranging from home improvement and construction.
Correspondent: Nicole Howley-Legal News for Illinois employment law plaintiff lawyers.