SSA Cooper Misclassified Stevedores as Exempt from OT Pay, Lawsuit Claims

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SSA Cooper, LLC is facing a proposed collective action claiming it failed to pay stevedores rightfully earned overtime wages or paid time off.

Touted in the complaint as “the world’s largest operator of marine and rail cargo terminals,” the defendant provides steamship lines with stevedores tasked with loading and unloading cargo from steamships docked in Charleston, Port Arthur, and Houston. Along with their loading duties, stevedores are supposedly also responsible for directing “gangs” of supervisors and employees of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), with whom they work alongside. Though they sometimes provide instructions to these workers, stevedores, the suit explains, don’t have the authority to hire, train, fire, or discipline the ILA members, nor are they responsible for determining their rates of pay or hours. Further, the lawsuit argues that stevedores are not considered “seamen,” as they do not “render aid in the operation of the vessels as a means of transportation nor do they aid the vessels in navigation.”

The lawsuit alleges that stevedores, therefore, don’t fall under any Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exemptions and should have been paid time-and-a-half overtime wages as employees of SSA Cooper. The plaintiffs claim they regularly put in 15 to 25 hours of overtime per week without being paid proper wages and were unlawfully denied earned paid time off for those hours.

Notably, the complaint mentions that the defendant has been sued two other times over similar allegations and, despite settling the other lawsuits, has supposedly continued its practice of misclassifying stevedores.