Wage and hour class actions have been an important tool for enforcing minimum wage and overtime laws in this country for decades. This country’s first wage and hour law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, was passed in 1938. It requires that employers pay a minimum wage, and that they pay overtime for hours over 40 in a week. Many employers cross the line that these laws establish in order to save labor costs. They sometimes classify employees as exempt when they should not. They sometimes ask employees to work off the clock. They sometimes pay server minimum wages, even when those servers aren’t serving customers and instead are cleaning the restaurant. The U.S. Department of Labor reported last year that it alone collected over $137 million in unpaid overtime wages from employers who violate these laws.
Recently, the defense bar in this area has come up with a new tool to avoid class-wide liability for their clients – the class action waiver. Employers are increasingly inserting conditions in their handbooks which require employees to waive their rights to bring lawsuits in court, and to initiate or participate in class actions. These provisions limit an employee’s rights to bring individual cases in arbitration and bar their access to the courts.
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