Fmr. Payroll Specialist Claims Aquatech International Owes Unpaid Wages to Misclassified Employees

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Aquatech International, LLC is the defendant in a proposed collective and class action in which the plaintiff claims the industrial water treatment company is responsible for a host of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) abuses.

The case states the plaintiff worked as a payroll specialist for the defendant from September 2014 until she was terminated in January 2018. The woman was paid a salary that included quarterly, non-discretionary bonuses, according to the complaint. The plaintiff claims she worked more than 40 hours during most workweeks without being paid time-and-a-half hourly overtime wages, due in part to being classified by Aquatech as exempt from overtime under the FLSA and Pennsylvania labor law, the suit says. The plaintiff’s classification as exempt was incorrect, the case argues, because the woman’s job responsibilities “did not include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.” Moreover, the lawsuit says the plaintiff supervised no one and had no discretion to change company guidelines or protocols or “to do anything other than follow them.”

The plaintiff further argues that she rarely, if ever, took an uninterrupted lunch break, and instead ate lunch while working at her desk. The woman says she also spent time working at home in the evening and on weekends to complete her work, as she frequently could not get her necessary tasks finished during her scheduled shift times.

“As a result, [the plaintiff] normally arrived before the start of her shift each day and after the scheduled end of her shift each day in order to try to complete her work,” the complaint reads. “Thus, [the plaintiff] worked an average of 9.5 to 10 hours per day at the office.”

The case charges that the defendant’s management knew the plaintiff and similarly situated salaried employees were performing non-exempt work for no additional pay yet did not intervene. All told, the plaintiff claims she worked between 45 and 55 hours per week—and sometimes far more during busy times of year—without proper wages.

Lastly, the plaintiff alleges her termination stemmed from her persistent complaints to management of the defendant’s supposed FLSA violations. Aquatech reportedly informed the plaintiff she was fired due to “not reporting time correctly.”