When workers feel they haven’t been adequately compensated for the time they’ve spent on-call, it could result in legal headaches and costly settlements for their employer — as this company recently found out.
Here’s what happened: Instead of paying IT maintenance employees for all hours worked while on-call, Verizon Enterprise Delivery LLC allegedly only paid workers a stipend equal to four hours of wages.
In addition, the company allegedly excluded the stipend from employees’ regular rate calculations, which resulted in unpaid overtime wages. The IT workers filed a lawsuit against Verizon, claiming the company had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
In the end, the company ended up settling the lawsuit with current and former employees to the tune of $750,000.