Suit: Amazon cheats workers out of OT

A lawsuit that accuses Amazon of cheating warehouse workers out of their lunch breaks, rest time and overtime pay is moving forward in California.

A former Amazon logistics specialist in Vacaville has sued the company for failing to ensure that she and others got a 30-minute lunch break.

Instead, Amazon required workers to keep walkie-talkies on them at all times, according to the worker’s complaint.

Meal breaks routinely were shortened “due to the time spent listening and responding to work-related obligations on their walkietalkies,” according to the suit.

Originally filed in February in state court in San Francisco, the suit was moved last week to federal court in the Northern District of California.

The complaint is seeking class-action status and comes amid a flurry of labor disputes involving Amazon, which is facing a unionization vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., strikes abroad, and a barrage of criticism from elected officials.

The plaintiff, Lovenia Scott, claims that warehouse workers were cheated out of their full 30 minutes for meals because Amazon did not properly schedule the breaks.

Lines at the punchout clock were so long, it could take up to 15 minutes just to sign out, she says.

The facility also was “chronically” understaffed, resulting in the inability of workers to take 10-minute rests for every four hours they worked, according to the complaint.

Amazon instructed workers to take a break “when they could get it,” but because the volume of work was so great, many did not, the complaint alleges.

The practice of working through breaks and not having a full 30-minute meal break caused employees to technically work overtime, but they were not paid overtime wages, the complaint says.

Scott also claims that workers were not compensated for using their personal cellphones to perform work tasks.

She worked at the warehouse from October 2016 to January 2019, overseeing trucks that were loaded and offloaded as they arrived and departed from the warehouse.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.