A lawsuit filed in federal court last week alleges Harte-Hanks of failing to pay employees for the full time they work.
The complaint filed July, 14 by Little Rock lawyer Josh Sanford on behalf of Elissa Shetzer “and all others similarly situated,” in the Texarkana division of the Eastern District of Texas federal court alleges Fair Labor Standards Act violations.
The suit alleges that employees are required to start work fifteen minutes prior to their scheduled shift start times to log in to the company’s computer system and open all operating systems and programs necessary to take the first call when the shift begins.
“Even though the process of logging in and starting up Defendant’s systems took as much as fifteen minutes, Defendant specifically instructed Plaintiffs not to clock in more than two or three minutes prior to their scheduled shift start times,” the suit alleges.
The suit further alleges that after clocking out employees have “to log off, close out and shut down Defendant’s various computer programs, a process which would take between five and ten minutes.”
According to the suit if an employee is on a phone call when their shift ends they are clocked out as soon as the call is over despite having to spend up to 15 minutes on administrative tasks related to the call.
The suit alleges that the pre and post shift work is done in addition to the 40 hours of work done in their regularly scheduled shifts and that employees are not being paid for two to three hours of overtime weekly.
There is no record of Harte-Hanks having been served a copy of the suit yet.
View the entire complaint .pdf