On Thursday in the Northern District of Illinois, Comcast Communications Management, LLC (Comcast) was sued in a collective action by a former Customer Service Representative for allegedly violating the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the overtime provisions of the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL) by failing to provide adequate overtime compensation.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff “has been entitled to the rights, protections, and benefits provided under the FLSA and the IMWL” and “(a)t all times material herein, Plaintiff was classified by Defendant as non-exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA and the IMWL and was paid an hourly wage.”
Specifically, the plaintiff was employed by Comcast as an hourly-paid Customer Service Representative from July 2005 to January 2021, the complaint stated. The plaintiff noted that she was “primarily responsible for receiving calls, communicating with customers, and making sales for cable, internet, phone, and/or home security services.” The plaintiff asserted that Comcast hired her and other Customer Service representatives and “controlled their work schedules, duties, protocols, applications, assignments and employment conditions, and kept at least some records regarding their employment.” The plaintiff stated that in addition to her hourly wage, she also received commissions and bonuses.
The plaintiff claimed that she and other Customer Service Representatives regularly worked more than 40 hours per workweek. Accordingly, the plaintiff stated that she and other Customer Service Representatives were paid 1.5 times their base hourly rate for the hours they worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. The plaintiff added that Comcast “did not include the commissions and bonuses that were paid to Plaintiff and other Customer Service Representatives in their regular rates when calculating their overtime pay even though Plaintiff and other Customer Service Representatives received commissions and bonuses in pay periods in which they also worked in excess of forty hours per week.”
This purportedly violated the Code of Federal Regulations, which “requires that all forms of compensation, such as nondiscretionary bonuses, ‘must be totaled in with other earnings to determine the regular rate on which overtime pay must be based.’” As a result, the plaintiff averred that Comcast violated the FLSA and IMWL “by not including all forms of compensation, such as the non-discretionary bonuses of Plaintiff and other Customer Service Representatives, in their regular rate when calculating their overtime pay.”
The plaintiff noted that upon information and belief, Comcast’s pay practices were the same for all Customer Service Representatives who received commissions regardless of the facility in which they worked. The plaintiff asserted that Comcast “knew or showed reckless disregard for whether, the way it paid Plaintiff and other Customer Service Representatives violated the FLSA and IMWL.”
The collective action is brought on behalf of “All Customer Service Representatives who received a commission and/or bonus in connection with work performed in at least one week in which they worked over forty hours within the past three years.”
The claims for relief are violations of FLSA and IMWL. The plaintiff seeks declaratory judgment, collective action certification, an award for damages, prejudgment interest, an award for costs and fees, and other relief. The plaintiff is represented by Sanford Law Firm PLLC.
