EAST ST. LOUIS – St. Clair County’s emergency agency owes telecommunications workers for thousands of hours of overtime, three of them alleged in U.S. district court on July 28.
Bradley Miller, Kayla Kilpatrick, and Blake Bumann proposed to represent a class of current and former workers alleging violation of state and federal wage laws.
Their counsel Philip Oliphant and Hannah Strong of Memphis claimed the agency deducts 30 minutes for breaks that busy employees didn’t take.
They claimed the agency also violates the law by paying overtime when a worker exceeds 80 hours in two weeks instead of paying it for a worker who exceeds 40 hours in one week.
Miller allegedly worked for the agency since 2016, and it pays him $27.31 an hour.
Kilpatrick allegedly worked for the agency since 2017, and it pays her $27.84 an hour.
Bumann allegedly worked for the agency since 2014, and it pays him $28.19 an hour.
They sought money damages for unpaid amounts including liquidated damages.
Oliphant and Strong also filed two other suits against the agency, one for manager Ann Ellis and one for managers Candis Cross and Tina Joaquin.
Ellis allegedly worked for the agency since 2013, and it pays her $26.39 an hour.
She allegedly averages 48 hours a week but receives no overtime premium.
Oliphant and Strong claimed the agency classified her as part time and denied health insurance.
They claimed Cross worked for the agency since 1997, and it formerly paid her $25.71 an hour.
The agency allegedly promoted her to manager of the eastern location in Belleville last year and raised her pay to $30.71.
They claimed the agency told her she no longer qualified for overtime.
She allegedly works 50 hours a week.
Oliphant and Strong claimed Joaquin worked for the agency since 1999, and it paid her $24.63 an hour until last year when the agency promoted her to manager and raised her pay to $29.63.
They claimed the agency told her she was exempt from overtime.
They claimed the agency resumed overtime payments to Ellis, Cross, and Joaquin in February but didn’t refund the payments they hadn’t received since their promotions.
The court clerk assigned Magistrate Judge Mark Beatty to the potential class action and the case of Cross and Joaquin.
The clerk assigned Magistrate Judge Gilbert Sison to Ellis’s case..