Wawa to pay out $1.4M that it short-changed employees
TRENTON >> Wawa will have to pay $1.4 million to settle a classaction lawsuit that claimed the convenience store chain failed to pay certain employees overtime pay they should have received.
Under the lawsuit that was filed in federal court in New Jersey over two years ago, Wawa labeled the some of its employees as assistant general managers and were therefor exempt of the overtime pay requirements under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. As a result, the employees routinely worked more than 40 hours per week without being paid the required higher overtime rate.
Those assistant managers, the suit claimed, had to perform work as regular employees did. This work included running cash registers, making deli sandwiches, stocking shelves, cleaning the store, and other tasks that lowerlevel employees should have been doing.
The problem, the suit stated, was that Wawa failed to establish labor budgets that would cover the costs for the stores to have enough employees for the jobs.
“Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded the fact that failing to provide sufficient resources in store labor budgets resulted in plaintiffs and other similarly situated AGMs (who were not paid overtime) to work more than 40 hours in a workweek and primarily perform manual and non-exempt duties during their workweeks, without receiving overtime compensation. This allowed defendants to avoid paying additional wages (including overtime) to the non-exempt store-level employees,” according to the 2017 lawsuit complaint.
They also said their jobs did not
include hiring, firing, disciplining, or directing the work of other employees.
In a complaint filed in January of 2017, plaintiffs James Cloud of Severin, Md., and Richard Bongiovanni of Morrisville told the court they each worked
at least 55 to 60 hours each week.
Under the agreement, about $900,000 will go to over 300 of the employees and former employees. The order also granted the plaintiffs’ council’s $466,666.66 to cover all attorney fees and costs.
Although officials from Wawa did not return a request for comment Monday, in their response filed to the suit in 2017 they denied the allegations.