Employees are suing American Airlines, Kroger and Montage Hotels and Resorts, among others, alleging that new time-tracking technologies used by the companies are unfairly subtracting part of their hourly wages, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Along with automatically deducting time for meal breaks regardless of whether or not the break was taken, employees say the systems have rounding policies that work to the employers’ favor. Over several years of employment, such deductions can keep thousands of dollars from the employees’ paychecks, attorneys say.
At call centers, employees complain they’re not being compensated when a call at the end of their shift keeps them working past their clock-off time, and in suits against hospitals, nurses have said they’ve spent their automatically-deducted meal breaks tending to patients.
“These people are doing really important jobs, and we’re not paying them for the time they’re actually working,” says Elizabeth Tippett, a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law and author of a new paper on time-tracking software that was published last week in the American Business Law Journal.
The suits against the companies have been filed separately in a number of states. American Airlines is appealing the class action suit filed against it, maintaining employees are paid for all hours worked. Kroger and Montage declined to comment on the suits they are facing.
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