Boca Raton, FL: An employment class action lawsuit has been brought by current and former employees of Sykes Enterprises Inc, or Alpine Access (collectively "EI") alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and breach of contractual obligations including unpaid wages and unpaid overtime.
Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that SEI, which employs 46,000 people in over 75 international service call centers, failed to adequately compensate them for all the time worked, including pre- and post-shift activities such as setup and login activities necessary to their jobs.
Lead plaintiff in the employment class action, Brandie Minor, alleges that in order for her to perform her job, she was required to start up and log in to various secure computer systems and servers in order to access pertinent client data, sales records, etc., creation of secure (VPN) connections with SEI' and its corporate customer' computer systems, and the downloading of customer information. This process took between 8 and 10 minutes per session to complete and a typical Client Services Agent (CSA) logged in and out of these systems between 2 and 3 times per day, as part of the normal work schedule. The lead plaintiff also alleges she was not allowed or even able to electronically "clock in"for her shifts each session until the setup and login process was complete, meaning the Plaintiff and all other Class members worked at least 8-10 minutes each, per session, that they were never compensated for. The time Plaintiff spent setting up and logging in each session directly benefitted SEI and this process was an essential part of Plaintiff' job responsibilities as a CSA.
Additionally, SEI' computer system automatically "clocked out"Ms. Minor at the end of her designated shift(s) even if she was in the middle of a call with a customer. Depending on the customer and issue, she often spent between 5 and 10 additional minutes wrapping up the last call of her shift, and this postliminary activity was never accounted for or paid for by SEI. These postliminary activities were an essential part of her job and these off-the-clock activities all directly benefitted SEI and its corporate clients.
The SEI call center employment class action lawsuit seeks to represent all current or former SEI employees who provided call center support services in the United States. Further, on behalf of herself and thousands of others similarly situated work-at-home SEI employees and CSAs, the lead plaintiff seeks to recover the full measure of back-pay and damages allowed by law.
Plaintiffs are represented by J. Benton Stewart of Stewart Law PLLC, Timothy J. Becker of Johnson Becker PLLC, and Jason J. Thompson and Jsee L. Young of Sommers Schwartz, P.C.
