Frito-Lay Owes Employees Unpaid Wages in Wake of Payroll Vendor Data Breach, Lawsuit Alleges

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Frito-Lay North America, Inc. has been hit with a proposed class and collective action that claims certain workers have not received proper wages in the wake of a data breach that crippled the food company’s timekeeping system.

The 17-page case states that a December 2021 data breach of the Kronos payroll system disrupted Frito-Lay’s ability to track workers’ hours and pay them accurately. The lawsuit contends that the defendant could have implemented any number of available ways to record employees’ hours and wages in the wake of the incident yet failed to do so.

“Instead, Frito-Lay used prior pay periods or reduced payroll estimates to avoid paying wages and proper overtime to these non-exempt hourly and salaried employees,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit claims that in many cases, this practice has resulted in employees receiving less pay than they were owed based on the number of hours they worked. 

According to the suit, Frito-Lay has essentially placed the economic burden of the Kronos data breach onto the backs of its front-line workers, who the case says “rely on the full and timely paymet [sic] of their wages to make ends meet.”

The lawsuit alleges Frito-Lay has violated both the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law by failing to properly pay employees.

The plaintiff says he has worked for Frito-Lay since November 2021 and, in the wake of the December data breach, was paid based on estimates of his hours or “arbitrary calculations and considerations” other than the actual hours he worked. 

Though the plaintiff in “some instances” received portions of his overtime wages, he was paid at the incorrect rate, according to the suit. The lawsuit argues that the plaintiff’s overtime rate should have been at least one-and-a-half times his regular pay rate, including shift differentials and non-discretionary bonuses.

“Frito-Lay was aware of the overtime requirements of the FLSA,” the complaint contends. “Frito-Lay nonetheless failed to pay the full overtime premium owed to certain non-exempt hourly and salaried employees, such as [the plaintiff].”

The case looks to cover current or former hourly and salaried employees of Frito-Lay who were non-exempt under the FLSA and worked for Frito-Lay in the U.S. at any time between the onset of the Kronos ransomware attack around December 11, 2021 and the present.

Excluded from the case are packers who worked for Frito-Lay after December 11, 2021 and opted into another lawsuit, titled Montgomery v. Frito-Lay, Inc., No. 3:22-cv-00185-N.

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