You may remember that a few years back, we saw a wave of overtime class action claims brought against a number of large Canadian employers. Last June, the Court declined to certify the overtime class action brought by a teller against the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (the National Post reported that the plaintiff will appeal to the Divisional Court).
There is some suggestion that, at least in the US, large employers are no longer the sole or prime target of these claims. According to this article:
Overtime complaints, a staple of employment law, are moving down the food chain from big corporations to midsize and small employers, sources say.
Are smaller and mid-size employers on the radar for overtime claims? Certainly the class actions have increased awareness among employees of their rights. According to one US plaintiff attorney:
“A lot of larger companies have cleaned up their act with regard to wage-and-hour law,” said Anthony Perez, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in Sacramento. “Smaller companies are more and more exposed when they try to sweep it under the rug and not compensate employees for overtime required by the labor code.”
This may be a good time for small to mid-size employers to take a look at their own practices and determine if and where issues exist and how to fix them.
