My employer is getting sued for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by not paying employees time and a half for overtime.
I'm afraid to join the suit because I fear retaliation (retaliation is prohibited by law but still).
Has anyone been in a similar situation?
This is a throw away account btw.
Edit- Y'all, thanks for all the replies. I'm going to contact the plaintiff's lawyers.
Yeah, definitely join.. I was a manager at a company that was doing this to people before I got there. A couple of the dudes who worked for me got around $40k iirc. I sued them under title IX when they fired me, my performance was always highly rated until I got a homophobic boss, and they settled with me for a nice chunk. Always sue your employer.
If you haven't, please look for another place to work. Even if you don't get retaliated against, this place can't be that great if they're getting sued like this.
Join it and you'll get fired. Just how it works.
But, you can't keep working at a place that steals from you. So, start looking for a new job tonight, and join the lawsuit tomorrow.
You should, while simultaneously getting fellow employees together and joining the suit as well as talking to them about standing together throughout this. You've got a "us vs them" narrative you can run with and it can help squash retaliation attempts. Admittedly, I don't have a roadmap for what that would look like
This happened at a place I worked. All of the employees who'd been shafted got paid back pay and got a raise. It was settled out of court. It is pretty much a slam dunk case if they are violating fair labor laws.
If its a class action, yeah. I've been part of a class action for similar issues and had no problem with retaliation.
We ended up getting like $12 each, lol
I mean, if they fucked me out of ~$10k in overtime pay (regularly worked 80 hours at this job during peak season, which lasted 3 months) and I got a tiny check... pretty sure they still won.
my partner is a pro-labor lawyer, shes out running errands rn - ping me if i dont post a reply in the next 30 min
edit: sent OP a DM - sharing some of the info for education purposes
my partner said that even though retaliation is against the law, if you were to get fired after joining the suit, you would then have to prove you were fired as retaliation. its super shitty, its all a matter of whether youre willing to deal with the litigation and/or settlement. most of the time your employer assumes you wont. also, my partner and I are assuming you are classified as an employee (not independent contractor) – if this is the case, you may actually be able to go through the department of labor for wage theft, and not even need to go through litigation. independent contractors have it much harder though, and dont have FLSA protection.
edit 2: partner said to go ahead and join the suit, and forwarded me this to pass on: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/WHD1498HowToFileAComplaint.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2X4Gs8_OUhsrNXa-QqhxtnvqJW4sdgCigFzn3-k3RRsDp-p_pUPPf2w6Y
THANK YOU TO ALL THE REAL ONES FOR PINGING ME NONSTOP FOR FORGETTING.
Only you can asses your situation and decide what your comfortable with, if you have people who depend on you or simply feel like your situation is too tenuous I don't think anyone would fault you for keeping your head down. But this is an opportunity to challenge corporate power, even if it feels small, every act that we take against the rich and powerful makes the world a slightly better place. Whatever you decide to do make sure that you have a plan to keep you and yours safe and secure, good luck comrade.
It's tough, obviously the answer should be "yes" fullstop, but it's not. If word comes out you sued them, does it directly affect your employment? As in, are you suing some suit somewhere across the country, or are you suing your bosses boss? Can you afford to be retaliated against? It's hard to prove they retaliated, can you find another job? Does the potential settlement really make any of these questions worth asking?
I work for a company that doesn't pay time and a half. They also miscategorize employees as contractors. There are only about a dozen workers at my location, 50 max total. I am considering my options.
