An Amazon delivery truck. Photo credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

A former Amazon.com LLC shift manager who claims the online retailer denied him overtime pay is seeking class action status in California federal district court, an attempt to widen the scope of allegations that workers are unfairly enduring grueling “internet speed” conditions in the retail company's warehouses across the country.

The case filed by Michael Ortiz in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California argued that salaried managers in Amazon warehouses—employees who are described as “glorified box shufflers” in the complaint—should be classified as nonexempt employees with the right to overtime pay for work over 40 hours a week. The case was originally filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court.

Oritz, who worked for Amazon in San Francisco-area facilities, seeks to include managers in warehouses who were classified as “Level 4″ managers and were salaried rather than hourly employees. His complaint alleged manager positions are misclassified, a violation of federal and state wage and hour law because the workers did not do supervisory work that would give them exempt status.

An Amazon spokeswoman told The Recorder on Wednesday that it is the company's policy not to comment on ongoing litigation. The company is represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

Ortiz's attorneys at Scott Cole & Associates argued in part that the class should be certified based on the uniformity of job duties.

“They spent their days as glorified box stufflers required to perform virtually constant manual labor on the delivery line due to insufficient staffing and its pursuit of 'leading the change at internet speed,'” Corey Bennett of Scott Cole wrote in court documents. “Because they were misclassified, they were not paid overtime wages. In many cases, due to the massive number of hours worked with minimal compensation, their wages fell below the federal standard.”

Ortiz claims in the lawsuit that he and other “Level 4 managers” were required to do constant manual labor, packing and picking up boxes, due to insufficient staffing. The work included tasks such as offloading trucks, staging equipment and unloading, receiving and scanning packages, the lawsuit alleges. The 10-hour shifts, four day a week were long enough to trigger mandatory rest breaks but Ortiz claims he did not take them, as hourly workers were required to do.

In October, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White denied the company's motion to strike the class allegations and allowed the case to move forward.

In 2014, a wage and hour case involving Amazon made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled unanimously that requiring employees to go through security screenings at the end of their workday does not require the company to pay overtime.

 

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