Texas employment lawsuit claims company made employees work off the clock
An employee at a Texas call center has filed a lawsuit claiming that she and other employees were not paid for work that they were required to do off the clock.
Elissa Shetzer filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against her employer, Harte-Hanks Response Management/Austin LP, which manages the call center in Texarkana, Texas. Shetzer claims that employees were not paid for time spent on tasks such as logging in to call systems and performing administrative work at the end of their shifts.
The lawsuit alleges that it took approximately 15 minutes to log into the computer system before the start of a shift, which was required in order to be able to take calls. In addition, the suit claims that employees had to spend about 10 minutes after each shift logging off and shutting down computer programs.
According to the lawsuit, if employees were on a call when their shift ended, they were paid only until the end of the phone call, even if there was additional administrative work related to the call that still needed to be completed before they could leave work. In addition, the suit alleges that workers often had to take a final customer call after their phones had automatically clocked them out.
Shetzer claims violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and is seeking class-action status for her lawsuit. The suit seeks monetary damages, liquidated damages, interests and costs from the defendants.