A fast-food worker is suing his employer for secretly shaving time off his and hundreds of other workers' hours.

Thirty-year-old Jeffrey Schuyler filed a class action suit against McDonald's Corp. and franchise owner Ralph Crawford, who owns 13 McDonald's restaurants in Central New York. Schuyler claims that supervisors in Crawford's restaurants routinely alter employees' hours on the company's computerized time-keeping system, thus denying them the proper compensation.

Schuyler discovered the time-shaving problem in January and complained to his supervisors. McDonald's paid him $1,000 to compensate him for his lost wages, but the problem persisted, according to the suit. Schuyler complained directly to Crawford, who then fired him. Crawford denies that he fired Schuyler.

Schuyler says McDonald's is also liable for the workers' lost wages because it didn't catch the “extraordinarily high number” of altered hours at Crawford's restaurants. The suit could encompass as many as 500 similarly situated workers, according to Schuyler's lawyer.

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