FACJI Employee Files Suit Seeking Allegedly Unpaid Travel Time Wages

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Fred A. Cook, Jr., Inc. (FACJI) and its CEO have been named as defendants in a collective action in which an employee alleges the parties didn’t pay him overtime wages as required under state and federal law.

The plaintiff says he works for the company as a vactor operator/foreman and laborer responsible for, among other tasks, operating a vactor vacuum truck that removes waste from clients’ sewers and catch basins. According to the suit, the man is paid $26.00 per hour yet doesn’t receive proper time-and-a-half overtime pay for the hours he works over 40 each week.

The plaintiff’s allegedly unpaid overtime stems from the defendants’ refusal to pay him for his travel time between the company’s main location and job sites when he isn’t driving a company truck, the suit explains. According to the plaintiff, employees are required to report to the defendant’s location to sign in at the beginning of each day, regardless of whether they pick up trucks and equipment, and must return at the end of the day to sign out. Though the man supposedly gets paid for his travel time while he’s operating a company vehicle, he claims he is not compensated for the time he spends as a passenger in a company truck or for when he drives his own car to and from the job sites with equipment left there overnight. The plaintiff claims he was paid no wages at all for up to three hours of work time spent traveling to and from work sites per day.

The lawsuit argues that the plaintiff should be paid time-and-a-half overtime, as his work-related travel time causes his weekly hours to exceed 40.

Moreover, the man says that after a human resources employee ignored his complaints about the company’s pay practices, he voiced his concerns to the individual defendant. The case alleges that almost immediately thereafter, the plaintiff was removed from the schedule and effectively suspended without pay from August 18 to September 13, 2017, in direct retaliation for his complaints.