Phone company workers seek overtime pay for hours spent on union activities
In a class action lawsuit currently pending in the Missouri Federal Court, workers at a national telephone company claimed they were owed overtime pay for time spent on union-related meetings, therefore violating the Federal Labor Standards Act. While the telephone company does compensate employees for work hours spent on union activities, these hours are not calculated into overtime payments, according to court documents.
The telephone company alleged that under collective bargaining agreements, union-related time was not listed as compensable. On this basis, the telephone company asked that the case be dismissed or move forward as an arbitration under the terms of the CBA. The District Court ruled that the lawsuit move forward to consider whether the company's policy of eliminating union activity hours from overtime calculations violates CBA agreements rather than FLSA.
When collective bargaining agreements are in use, arbitration can become tricky. While FLSA dictates that employee time spent on union matters is compensable, the act also leaves this determination to "the process of collective bargaining or to the custom and practice under the collective bargaining agreement," according to Business and Legal Resources.
No matter what union agreements are in place, workplaces should always maintain time and attendance records so that hourly disputes can be quickly resolved.
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