Business

Lowe's employees file suit over pay

In a class action lawsuit filed last week, employees of Lowe's home improvement allege the company shorted them owed pay in mis-calculating hours worked, failing to account for hours worked over 40 per week by salaried employees, in a violation of federal law.

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Lowe's Store Front
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — In a class action lawsuit filed last week, employees of Lowe's home improvement allege the company shorted them owed pay in mis-calculating hours worked, failing to account for hours worked over 40 per week by salaried employees, in a violation of federal law.

The class includes employees in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Oregon, but none so far in Lowe's home state of North Carolina. The company is headquartered in Mooresville.

The suit cites a Lowe's practice of "Give Back Time" which, the suit says, Lowe's should have included in total hours worked and which should have triggered bonuses or overtime pay.

"Defendant failed to include certain nondiscretionary bonus compensation when calculating Plaintiffs’ and every other Rule 23 Nationwide Class members’ “regular rate of pay” for purposes of overtime compensation and failed to include Give Back Time when calculating the total number of hours worked in a workweek," the suit alleges.

The plaintiffs asked the court to certify their class and asked for a jury trial with the hopes jurors will award "the full amount of damages and liquidated damages available by law," the suit says.

This is not the first time that employees have challenged Lowe's pay practices.

The company also faces a class action suit, filed last spring, that alleges hourly managers were asked to do work before and after scheduled shifts and during dinner breaks. In 2014, the company settled a suit that alleged the company "misclassified" up to 1,750 of its human resource managers.

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