Mercedes-Benz Underpaid Employees Following Kronos Data Breach, Lawsuit Claims [UPDATE]

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A proposed collective action alleges Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC has failed to pay workers proper wages in the wake of a December 2021 data breach that crippled its payroll vendor.

The 14-page lawsuit states that Mercedes-Benz, like many other companies, was unable to use the Kronos timekeeping system to properly track workers’ hours and pay them accordingly after a December 11 ransomware attack rendered the system inoperable. Instead of using one of many available methods to accurately record workers’ hours, Mercedes-Benz has issued paychecks based on either an employee’s scheduled hours or a previous pay period, both of which, in many cases, have caused employees to be underpaid, according to the complaint.

Per the suit, Mercedes-Benz employees have not received proper overtime wages or even straight time wages in the wake of the Kronos data breach as a result of the automaker’s failure to accurately record their hours. The lawsuit alleges Mercedes-Benz has placed the economic burden of the data breach “on front-line workers—average Americans—who rely on the full and timely payment of their wages to make ends meet.”

The plaintiff, who has worked for Mercedes-Benz since 1996, says he has been paid based on inaccurate estimates of his hours or “arbitrary considerations” other than the actual number of hours he has worked. According to the suit, although the plaintiff has sometimes been paid portions of his overtime wages for weekly hours worked in excess of 40, his overtime rates did not include adjustments for shift differentials and non-discretionary bonuses, and were thus lower than they should have been.

The case contends that although Mercedes-Benz “could have easily implemented” a system to accurately track workers’ hours and pay them in accordance with federal law, it chose not to do so in order to pocket the money it owed to employees. 

“[The plaintiff] is just one of the many Mercedes-Benz employees who had to shoulder the burden of this decision by Mercedes-Benz,” the complaint alleges.

The plaintiff looks to represent all current or former hourly and salaried Mercedes-Benz employees who were non-overtime-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and worked for the automaker in the U.S. at any time since the onset of the Kronos ransomware attack around December 11, 2021.

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