Telecom Company AmeriCloud Hit with Lawsuit Over Alleged Wage and Hour Violations

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AmeriCloud Solutions, Inc. has been hit with a proposed class and collective action filed by four employees who claim they were misclassified as independent contractors and denied proper overtime wages.

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The 11-page lawsuit says that the Illinois-based company, which provides telecommunications services, has run afoul of federal and state law by misclassifying its radio frequency (RF) engineers as independent contractors rather than bona fide employees. As a result of this misclassification, AmeriCloud did not always pay the employees for every hour worked and failed to provide them overtime premiums for hours worked in excess of 40 per pay period, the case charges.

According to the suit, the Illinois plaintiffs are members of the company’s RF engineering team who perform “drive testing” using AmeriCloud-owned equipment and specialized vehicles to test cellular telephone towers. The plaintiffs claim that the work sometimes requires cross-country travel for which they are not always paid.

As the case tells it, the work is divided into two scheduled shifts of eight-hours. The first is scheduled from 4 a.m. to 12 p.m., and the second from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., the filing states. However, the plaintiffs say they “usually” end up working shifts between nine and 10 hours long, due in part to the fact that the employees must spend roughly half an hour at the beginning of the morning shift and at the end of the evening shift moving equipment back and forth from the company vehicle to the hotel at which they are staying.

In addition, though the first shift is scheduled to begin at 4 a.m., “[AmeriCloud] would repeatedly call [the plaintiffs] as early as 2:00 am to force them to get started in work and to discuss issues related to equipment,” the complaint contends.

The filing alleges that because the workers are improperly classified as independent contractors by AmeriCloud, they are paid a “straight hourly rate” despite qualifying for overtime premiums pursuant to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

The lawsuit further charges that employees have been denied proper compensation for work performed outside their scheduled shifts.

For example, the suit shares that “[c]oordinators would sometimes tell drive testers that there were things like travel that the company would not pay for or otherwise directed drive testers not to put on their timesheet like waiting for rental cars at the airport.”

The lawsuit looks to represent any drive testers who have worked for AmeriCloud Solutions, Inc. since November 1, 2020.

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