Dive Brief:
- Kroger is facing two recently filed class action lawsuits alleging that the grocer misclassified its e-commerce manager position as exempt from overtime pay.
- The same law firm, Morgan & Morgan, brought both lawsuits. It filed the first suit Feb. 25 in a Colorado district court, and filed the second on Monday in a Washington state district court.
- The lawsuits claim that Kroger violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law, as well as wage and hour laws in both states.
Dive Insight:
Kroger classified its e-commerce manager position as a salaried role with no additional compensation or overtime pay, but both lawsuits said the job isn’t exempt from overtime pay because it doesn’t include traditional manager duties.
“E-commerce managers, like Plaintiff, are not involved in hiring or firing employees of Kroger, nor are their recommendations as to hiring, firing, advancement, promotion or other status change of an employee given particular weight, and as such, cannot be exempt under the FLSA,” according to the two suits.
The main duties of the e-commerce manager, both suits stated, “are production: to fill orders received from customers on Kroger’s e-commerce website platform and prepare those orders for customers, which are non-exempt duties.”
Both plaintiffs claimed that they regularly worked more than 40 hours per week and did not receive overtime pay while in the e-commerce manager role. The lawsuits also allege that Kroger expected its e-commerce managers to work more than 40 hours per week and failed to accurately track the hours worked by people in that role.
“Even though Plaintiff and other ‘e-commerce managers’ were ostensibly ‘supervisors’, his/their primary job duties were non-exempt and overtime pay eligible duties,” both lawsuits stated.
Kroger did not respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs want to recover unpaid overtime wages along with the penalties, interest and other remedies provided by federal and the respective state laws. Both lawsuits claim there are at least 100 people in each state who could be eligible to sue.
