Former Gem Shopping Network Sales Rep. Files Suit Over Alleged OT Violations, Retaliation

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A former sales representative for Gem Shopping Network, Inc. has filed suit against the company claiming he is owed unpaid wages and was unlawfully terminated in April 2018.

The plaintiff says he began working for the defendant in November 2016 and was paid an hourly rate plus commission on sales he made. According to the complaint, the man was reviewing his time records on April 23 and noticed that two of his entries from the previous week had been edited to reflect fewer hours than he actually worked, thereby decreasing his recorded overtime hours. The plaintiff says he reported the apparent discrepancy to the company’s human resources department – noting that failure to pay proper overtime constituted a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – and was told the next day that he was “now under investigation” for clocking in too early on the exact two days in question. When the man went back to recheck the defendant’s time records, the suit goes on, he noticed that the two days had once again been edited, this time to reflect more time than he had actually worked in what the case calls an apparent attempt to “frame [him]…by accusing him of falsification.”

On April 25, the plaintiff was reportedly terminated “because of the time records for the two days in question.” The man argues that the defendant owes him unpaid wages due to an alleged policy whereby the company failed to include commissions in employees’ “regular rate of pay” when calculating their time-and-a-half overtime rate. Further, he insists that his termination was unlawful because it was executed in direct retaliation for “his attempt to assert his rights under the FLSA.”