Trio Sues for Unpaid Wages in Georgia

Kennesaw, GAA call center outsourcing provider in Georgia has been hit with a Georgia employment lawsuit alleging unpaid overtime wages. Three former employees of the call center, located in Kennesaw, allege that Ryla Inc. mandated that they perform uncompensated work prior to the commencement of and after the expiration of their normal shift. The work, it is alleged, was not compensated.

The allegations fly in the face of Georgia Labor Laws which require, as do most jurisdictions, that employees are compensated at one and one-half times their normal rate of pay for any hours worked over and above 40 hours in any given work week or eight hours in any given day excluding meal periods and breaks.

According to the January 25 issue of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Terri Slaughter-Cabbell, Lana Hooks and Anita Hall allege that Ryla required them to perform various tasks outside of their normal work hours—in other words, functions that were required prior to the start of their shift, or after their shifts would ordinarily come to an end.

Amongst the Georgia Labor violations, the three plaintiffs allege they were required to boot up computers, initialize software programs and set up "call backs," together with the review of related e-mails and instant messages. This work, it is alleged, was mandated to be done while an employee was off the clock, presumably so as not to impede the normal workflow once they were actively engaged in their shifts.

The three, represented by a Georgia labor attorney, claim that their former employer utilized a system for tracking work time that did not allow for the tracking of pre- and post-shift work.

The three litigants in the Georgia employment law case are seeking back wages and attorney's fees.

The lawsuit was filed January 21 in US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. A spokesperson for the defendant would not comment. "As a Ryla company policy, we don't comment on any ongoing litigation," a company spokesperson told Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Labor laws are designed to protect individual workers from being taken advantage of by an employer. Working hours over and above those hours scheduled for actual work can not only affect an employee's health and take away from family time and other pursuits, such practice is a direct contravention of the ideal and protocol of fair pay for fair work.