Avon Products Hit with Worker Misclassification Class Action in California

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Avon’s alleged practice of classifying some workers as employees while designating others as independent contractors—and the legal protections afforded to the former that are not enjoyed by the latter—is at the center of a proposed class action lawsuit filed in California’s Northern District.

The 45-page case against Avon Products, New Avon, and Cerberus Capital Management challenges the alleged systemically illegal employment practices affecting Avon workers with the title of district sales manager. The case claims these workers were designated by Avon as independent contractors when they should have instead been considered bona fide employees and entitled to the workplace protections afforded to such. Avon’s alleged misclassification of the workers, the suit’s two named plaintiffs claim, marks an attempt by the direct beauty products seller to “avoid various duties and obligations” owed under California and federal labor laws.

The plaintiffs allege that as a result of being misclassified as independent contractors, the defendants have refused to indemnify them and proposed class members for job-related expenses. Moreover, the defendants, the case claims, have taken wrongful deductions from district sales managers’ wages, as well as coerced them into buying “necessary services and items” while failing to provide off-duty meal and rest breaks. Proposed class members have also not had their actual work hours properly documented by Avon, the lawsuit claims, nor have they received proper time-and-a-half overtime pay.

From the case:

“Plaintiffs and the members of the California, New Jersey and FLSA Classes were required to spend the majority of her [sic] time engaging in the non-exempt promotional work of recruiting persons to become independent contractor sales representatives of Avon and then educating these independent contractors about Avon’s product line. Although promotional work can constitute exempt sales work if the promotional activity is incidental to, or done in conjunction with, the employees’ outside sales work, here the promotional work was done in advance of sales made by someone else other than the Plaintiffs and other District Sales Managers and as such their work should not be considered exempt outside sales work. If the sales representatives wanted to purchase a product from Avon, then the sales representatives would buy directly from Avon through the use of Avon’s website or through the mail. The Plaintiffs and other District Sales Managers were not involved in the sales process between the sales representatives and Avon. As a result of the lack of managerial duties required of Plaintiff and the lack of true outside sales work, Plaintiff and other District Sales Managers should have been properly classified as non- exempt employees entitled to overtime wages and other related benefits.” 

After expanding on why the plaintiffs and proposed class members were supposedly owed the labor protections afforded to employees, the case claims the defendants ran afoul of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) when they failed to provide proposed class members with at least 60 days’ advance notice of mass layoffs that took place between January 21 and June 30, 2017. More from the suit:

“Specifically, on January 21, 2017, Defendants terminated approximately 140 employees. Thereafter, on February 24, 2017, Defendants terminated additional employees, including Plaintiff. Finally, on June 30, 2017, Defendants terminated hundreds of additional employees. Such mass terminations resulted [in] employment loss at the facility for at least 33 percent of the employees (excluding part-time employees).

Plaintiffs and the members of the WARN plaintiff class were not provided with notice of such terminations sixty (60) days in advance thereof.”

The lawsuit can be read in full below.