Another Assistant Manager Lawsuit against Eckerd Drugs?

Lufkin, TXBernita was initially hired by Eckerd Drugs as an "office gal" and soon worked her way up to assistant manager. No surprise, Bernita worked longer hours but wasn't getting paid more. In fact, she made more money before getting promoted, because Eckerd didn't pay assistant managers overtime, even though they were paid an hourly rate. And other assistant managers were paid salary: Eckerd also owes them overtime because they were misclassified as exempt.

According to Bernita, the Eckerd store where she worked (which was one of 1,268 drugstores bought by CVS in 2004) actually did pay her overtime, but at less than half that of minimum wage! "I was paid $10.25 an hour and they paid the assistant managers $4.25 per hour in overtime," says Bernita, who confirmed that she does not mean $14.50 per hour ($10.25 plus $4.25, which would still be in violation of overtime law). Yes, she was actually paid $4.25 per hour!

"The clerks got paid time and a half if they worked overtime—they were most likely making more than us assistant managers."

Bernita started working at Eckerd in September 1999 and left in the spring of 2002. "Sometimes I worked up to 20 hours per pay period (every two weeks) in overtime," she says. "We always went over 8-hour days on weekends and quite often we worked 12-hours shifts because the store managers didn't work weekends—assistant managers covered for them." And why would a manager work weekends? They were on salary and definitely not in line for overtime…

"We discussed this overtime rate with the manager but he told us that this is the way the company operates," says Bernita. "When I was hired, no one ever told me that I would get that rate—I just noticed it on my check, but I was told that the job would mean overtime. When you need a job, you just accept it. I was afraid of speaking out and figured it wouldn't do any good to say anything.

"I finally left the company because I had a disagreement with my manager. About six months later I received a letter from a lawyer—a class action overtime lawsuit had been filed on behalf of an assistant manager against Eckerd. I sent in some information but didn't hear back so now I am going to pursue my own overtime lawsuit if it isn't too late. I figure that Eckerd owes me thousands and thousands of dollars in unpaid overtime."

In 2009 a group of assistant store managers sued CVS Caremark Corp. for allegedly failing to properly pay overtime. The pharmacy giant was accused of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by deliberately misclassifying them as "executives" so that it could avoid paying them overtime compensation. Although the assistant managers were salaried, they routinely worked at tasks such as stocking merchandise, working registers, unpacking boxes, unloading trucks and taking out trash, rather than performing managerial duties, according to the suit. Misclassifying employees as exempt and not paying overtime is a violation of state and federal labor laws, and assistant managers are likely owed unpaid overtime compensation.

CVS is the largest retail pharmacy chain in the US., with over 7,000 stores—that's a lot of assistant managers who are owed overtime.