Menards Employees Across Nine States Sue for Allegedly Unpaid Wages

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More than 100 current and former Menard, Inc. employees claim in a proposed collective and class action that they were deprived of proper wages due to company policies that allegedly resulted in the underpayment of workers.

According to the complaint, the plaintiffs worked as hourly employees at several Menards retail store locations across the country. The plaintiffs allege that company policy required them to clock out for rest breaks lasting 20 minutes or less, a violation of federal labor law. From the lawsuit:

“Specifically, Menards enforces a uniform company-wide policy that impermissibly requires Plaintiffs and the Putative Class Members to clock out for their rest breaks throughout the day, does not pay them any amount of time for those rest breaks, and does not count their rest breaks towards their total hours worked each week. This violation affects all Plaintiffs and Putative Class Members irrespective of the location or the type of Menards facility they work in.

For instance, Plaintiffs and Putative Class Members that work in Menards’ retail stores are required to clock out every time they enter the restroom, break room, or leave the store premises, and are required to clock back in once they reach the “floor” or the area of the store that is open to Menards’ customers. This deduction occurs even if the break lasts only a few minutes.”

Further, the case claims the employees had to attend off-the-clock staff meetings and attend job training without getting paid. On top of these allegations is the claim that Menards miscalculated workers’ regular hourly rates for the purposes of calculating weekly overtime wages.

All told, the plaintiffs were not paid the required time-and-a-half rate for overtime work, the suit says.