Failure To Pay Lawsuit For Super Market Chain

A super market chain most popular in the southern regions such as Florida, Alabama, and Georgia has been slapped with a failure to pay lawsuit by four former employees.  They claim that Publix Super Markets, which has more than 1,000 hourly workers statewide, has failed to pay overtime.

The Sun-Sentinel reports that "the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Panama City earlier this week, claims that managers should have been paid a rate of "time and a half" for overtime hours instead of the "half time."

The statement made by Publix at this time is that they have complied with the overtime pay employee labor laws. "We are confident that we're doing the right thing by our associates," said spokeswoman Maria Brous.

The lawyers representing the plaintiffs on the case, Sean Culliton and John Davis in Tallahassee are seeking a class action status for the lawsuit.   All the former employees at Publix were assigned to either the deli or bakery assistant managers for stores, according to the lawsuit.

If the former employees were actually getting paid half time and not time and a half, then the employer could very well be in violation.  Again, whether Publix willfully violated the labor law in their state is up for determination.  The lawsuit is was filed from employees who are spread across multiple store locations.  The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states there are instances where an employee would be not be required to receive overtime pay for extended hours.  

-Seasonal workers

-Seamen employed on foreign vessels

-Employees engaged in fishing operations

-Employees engaged in newspaper delivery

-Employees who lack a high school diploma, or who have not completed the eighth grade, who spend part of their workweeks in remedial reading or training in other basic skills that are not job specific.

At any rate, the burden does fall on the employer and management to be fully versed in The Fair Labor Standards for themselves.  There are more laws that pertain to what an employer should not be doing as opposed to what they should be.  If you are an employer it is very important to stay compliant and knowledgeable and make sure that your management staff is equally as informed.

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Redundancy Employment Law In The UK

UK employment law covers various topics to do with the rights of employees and the obligations
of employers, from minimum wages, working hours regulation, anti-discrimination provisions,
fair-pay requirements and unfair dismissal rules. One of the major areas of the employment
relationship that is regulated is redundancy. Employment law on redundancy covers the entire
process of redundancy, including the notice given to employees, the process for selecting
employees for redundancy, and the redundancy pay due to employees.

Redundancy employment law regarding the process of redundancy requires employers to give
affected employees sufficient notice regarding the redundancy process. Employees must be
consulted about the redundancy process and the alternatives to widespread redundancies. For
example, methods of reducing the number of redundancies may be considered, such as ways of
implementing budget cuts.

If an employee is selected for redundancy, the employer must give them at least their
minimum statutory notice period, which is at least one week’s notice if they have been
employed between one month and two years; one week’s notice for each year if they are
employed between two and 12 years; and 12 weeks’ notice if they are employed for 12
years or more. It is important to check the individual employment contract to see if a notice
period different to the statutory minimum was agreed. And, in some cases the employer may
have included a payment in lieu of notice clause, in which case the employer can end the
employment contract without any notice but must pay the employee for the notice period
instead.

Employment redundancy law also requires the employer to provide the employee with a
written notice of the redundancy which includes the reasons for redundancy. Alternatively, this
may be included within a compromise agreement which includes various clauses, generally
including a clause which bars further legal action once the compromise agreement is signed.

It is crucial that employees get legal advice from an employment solicitor before signing
a compromise agreement. If the employee is dissatisfied with any of the clauses in the
compromise agreement, they may be able to negotiate them with their employer.

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