Office supply company
Staples, Inc., based in
lawsuit alleging that the company misclassified assistant managers in
exempt from overtime. The settlement proceeds will be shared by up to 1,700
assistant managers who worked for Staples over a 12-year period.
The employees contended
that they didn’t qualify for the managerial or executive exemption from
overtime because they spent more than half of their work time performing
nonexempt duties. They claimed that company policy discouraged managers from
approving overtime for hourly workers, and thus that when there was extra work
to be done, the managers often had to do it. Staples did not admit wrongdoing
but said it settled to avoid further expense and distraction from litigation.
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