According to a class action lawsuit recently filed in a Michigan federal court, PCSU – a credit union service organization that supports more than 1,500 financial institutions across the U.S. – is allegedly withholding overtime pay from its customer service representatives in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Members of the plaintiff class are non-exempt employees and are entitled to be paid on an hourly basis, including time-and-a-half for hours in excess of 40 hours per week. They claim that PSCU regularly forced them to work “off the clock” without being compensated for job-related activities before, during, and after their workdays.
Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that PSCU:
- Required them to log into PSCU’s computer systems before starting their shifts;
- Required them to sign out of PSCU’s computer systems after their shifts ended;
- Failed to pay them for the periods of time when PSCU’s applications disconnected from the company’s computer systems; and
- Failed to provide the customer service representatives with bona fide meal breaks.
Violations as those alleged in this case are not new to the call center industry. A Fact Sheet issued by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2008 shed light on certain abuses prevalent among call center employers and expressly condemns the practice of not paying call center workers for the necessary job-related activities performed before and after their shifts.
The PSCU employees who have brought this lawsuit want to help other current and former customer service representations come forward and join the class to recover their unpaid overtime. The plaintiffs seek compensation for all unpaid overtime hours as well as liquidated damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs.
If you are or were employed as a customer service representative by PSCU Incorporated in the past three years and suspect that you were unlawfully denied your hard-earned overtime pay, please contact the attorneys in Sommers Schwartz’s Employment Litigation Group today – we’re here to help.
Jason J. Thompson
Jason Thompson is a nationally board certified trial attorney and co-chairs Sommers Schwartz’s Complex Litigation Department. He has a formidable breadth of litigation experience, including class action and multidistrict litigation (MDL), and practices nationwide in both state and federal courts.
