On Friday, workers James Futrell and April Brown filed a complaint on behalf of other employees of Cargill, Incorporated in the District of Minnesota for an alleged failure to properly keep track of overtime hours worked and subsequent failure to pay their workers the appropriate amounts in wake of the Kronos hack. Several other lawsuits, including one against PepsiCo, have been filed for the same reasons.
Kronos, one of the world’s largest human resources companies that works with other companies to manage their timekeeping and payroll information, was hacked in December of 2021, which disrupted the use of their services for thousands of major businesses worldwide, per the complaint.
Cargill workers “were not paid for all hours worked and were not paid their proper overtime premium for all overtime hours worked after the onset of the Kronos hack” despite not being exempt from receiving overtime pay. The plaintiffs argued that Cargill could have “easily” implemented a system to properly record the number of hours worked for the workers, but decided not to. This is despite the fact that Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the U.S. in terms of revenue, and they have hired over 150,000 workers, according to Forbes.
Instead of implementing a new system to properly track overtime hours, Cargill reportedly “issued paychecks based on their scheduled hours, or simply duplicated paychecks from pay periods prior to the Kronos hack” resulting in employees being paid less than they normally would. Furthermore, they allegedly were not even paid at the proper overtime rate of 1.5x pay. According to the plaintiffs, these constitute violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Wisconsin wage laws. The plaintiffs are suing for collective action as they believe it is “ is superior to other available means for fair and efficient adjudication of the lawsuit.”
The plaintiffs are seeking class certification, a declaration that Cargill is liable for violations of Wisconsin and FLSA claims, awarding all unpaid wages, liquidated damages, restitution, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney’s fees and costs, and other relief.
The plaintiffs are represented by Fiebiger Law LLC and Parmet PC.
