Family Dollar Employees Sue Over Unpaid Overtime
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – When most folks get a promotion, they get a higher salary and cease doing what hourly workers do, but that's not what 14 former and current managers at local Family Dollar stores say happened to them.
"We're working 60,70, 80, 90, sometimes 100 hours a week just to make sure we completed our tasks," Arthur Moses, a former manager, told KDKA money editor Jon Delano.
And he says he wasn't paid for those extra hours of work.
So Moses and the others have filed a civil complaint against Family Dollar.
The essence of the complaint is this.
The former managers of Family Dollar say they were promoted so that the store could avoid paying them overtime.
They got a salary, but in the end they worked longer hours at lower pay than the hourly employees and that, they say, violated Pennsylvania labor laws.
Attorneys representing the managers say, despite their title, they really did non-management jobs just like the hourly workers.
"Sweeping the floors, cleaning the store, mopping the bathroom, and our position is that when you spend 95 percent of your day doing these non-managerial tasks, you are not in fact a manager," noted Maggie Schuetz Coleman, one of the attorneys for the managers.
Like Moses, Oliver Holmes was also a manager, sometimes working a hundred hours a week for $600 -- around $6 an hour, below minimum wage.
"They were hiring assistant managers coming in at $11, $12 an hour," said Holmes. "They were making more than me, and I was the store manager."
The long unpaid hours got so bad, they often slept at the stores.
"I would sometimes clear shelves and get a blanket and a pillow and lay on the shelf," noted Moses.
"Family Dollar is required to compensate them for overtime, which is time and a half for every hour worked over 40 hours a week," added Elizabeth Pollock-Avery, one of the attorneys.
No comment yet from Family Dollar.
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