A former assistant store manager for Dunham's Sporting Goods has filed a class action suit in Pennsylvania claiming that he and other assistant store managers should have been paid overtime. The basics of the claim are very familiar: most of their work consisted of customer assistance and manual labor such as restocking shelves, cleaning store bathrooms and the like. The suit filed against Dunham's was reported in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Gazette.
The suit basically claims that the assistant store managers rarely exercised and actual managerial authority and its key allegations include:
- assistant managers "performed managerial duties approximately less than 20 percent of the time during the week"
- assistant managers didn't interview, hire or fire employees; didn't review employees' performance; and didn't decide whether underlings received raises
- assistant managers spent most of their time on "non-managerial functions" including running cash registers, assisting customers, stocking shelves, unloading trucks and other light maintenance and janitorial duties.
We have previously reported on overtime suits filed by managers and store managers: Rite-Aid Store Managers Settle Overtime Suit; Assistant Bank Branch Managers Settle Overtime Suit; Supermarket Sued For Overtime by Co-Manager; Store Managers at Radio Shack Sue for Unpaid Overtime; and Store Managers at Harbor Freight Sue for Unpaid Overtime being only a few examples.
The job title of store manager does not necessarily mean that the employee is exempt from overtime; the employee's actual duties rather than their job title determine whether they are exempt. See Does a job title determine whether an employee is exempt from overtime pay requirements? Are assistant managers exempt from overtime?
Lexington, Kentucky overtime lawyer Robert Abell helps employees and individuals recover the overtime and wages they've earned but not been paid; contact him at 859-254-7076.