Unpaid hours at bank, suit alleges
A former call center employee for JPMorgan Chase & Co. sued the New York-based bank for allegedly forcing her and her colleagues to work off the clock up to five hours each week.
Shannon Rivenbark, a former fraud analyst, alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in federal court in Houston this month that the bank does not pay call center employees for the time it takes each day to log on to their computers, open up to 10 JPMorgan Chase programs and make sure each one is running properly. The preparation must be done in advance, according to the lawsuit, because bank policies require employees to be ready to take their first calls the moment their official shifts begin.
JPMorgan Chase would not comment. The company has not filed a response in court.
Call center workers in a variety of industries have filed similar wage cases against employers for not compensating them for the time it takes to prepare for calls, an electronic version of “donning and doffing,” referring to the time it takes slaughterhouse, construction and other blue-collar employees to suit up and then clean off from their jobs. Companies must typically pay employees for that time.
“If you operate a lathe or a drilling press and you have to get there early to oil, grease or clean the machine, all that time must be paid,” Houston employment lawyer Rex Burch said. “The fact you are getting a computer ready instead of a lathe is no different, in terms of the law.”
Lawsuits over uncompensated preparation time — and the back wage bills companies have had to pay —have prompted many call centers to provide dedicated time each time day for prep work, Burch said.
The U.S. Department of Labor
instructs call center employees in an online bulletin that they must be paid from the beginning of the first principal activity of the workday to the last. A typical example of the first principal activity of the day is starting a computer to download work instructions, computer applications and work-related emails, according to the Labor Department.
Rivenbark worked full time as a fraud analyst from 2010 and 2016, court records show.
Rivenbark is seeking class-action status to represent all Chase fraud call center employees who have worked for the bank since Dec. 14, 2014.
The lawsuit is seeking back wages for all employees plus an equal amount in damages.