Qwest Corporation, CenturyLink Named in Former Engineer’s Wage and Hour Suit

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Out of Montana comes a proposed collective action filed against Qwest Corporation (which does business as CenturyLink QC) and CenturyLink Communications, LLC over the companies’ alleged misclassification of their engineers as exempt management employees. The plaintiff says he was employed by the defendants as an engineer who performed “manual and clerical tasks” for which he received a yearly salary. According to the suit, the defendants determined his position fell under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s managerial exemption from overtime wages, “even though [the plaintiff] never managed or supervised any employees.”

The lawsuit argues that the defendants’ decision was motivated by their unwillingness to pay engineers premium overtime pay for the hours they worked over 40 each week – which, in the plaintiff’s case, totaled 10 to 15 hours per week. That plaintiff claims that because his position was misclassified, he not only received no overtime pay, but was paid no wages at all for his weekly hours in excess of 40.