Jewels, Lies and Unpaid Overtime

Picayune, MSFor two years, jewelry sales associate Elizabeth Dunphey put in thousands of overtime hours yet her manager refused due compensation, proclaiming it was against Zale Corporation company policy. When Elizabeth was promoted to manager, she discovered the deepest of deceptions and the reasons behind it.

"The overtime issue started just after I got hired in 2004," explains Dunphey. "Initially I worked extra hours if one of the girls was late, or didn't show up, or for some reason couldn't make it. I would go ahead and stay later and sometimes I would close. The rule was that there had to be two people to open, two to close and two in store at all times, so if only two were scheduled to work and one couldn't come we were supposed to close the store. The problem was we were in a mall so we had to stay open or pay a pretty heavy fine.

August 2005 is when we had Hurricane Katrina and the mall was closed for three weeks. When it reopened it was just the manager, myself and one other employee. Again, my manager kept insisting she wasn't allowed to pay overtime even with my six days a week and no lunch hour when we were just two.

It was in September that I found out that most of the other stores in the region were paying overtime, even though we were under the same regional manager. Apparently the regional manager had told the other managers to go ahead and pay overtime if they had to but my manager refused for some reason, not for one single hour.

Even during our fiscal year of August 2005 to August 06, I sold $1.25 million worth of merchandise, but I wasn't paid one single dollar of overtime.

In March 2006, the manager was promoted to regional manager and left. After her departure I sent a letter to the vice president of the Zale Corporation, saying that from that point on I expected to be paid if I worked overtime. So, I was paid overtime from that month forward. Six months later I was promoted to manager, and as such, had no right to overtime nor could I hire anyone to replace our shortage of employees.

I don't want to understate the fact that I worked thousands of hours overtime during that period.

I found out that I had been lied to when an employee from another store called to ask me how to code overtime in the computer; I told her she wasn't allowed. She then informed me that the regional manager did authorize overtime. Of course I went to my boss and asked why they were getting overtime in our Hammond store but I wasn't. She swore no one was getting overtime but I then discovered that all the stores were compensating for overtime, except mine. That girl at the other store really got screamed at.

I think what happened was that my manager got accustomed to me working for nothing, and I think she told her regional boss not to worry, that she could get Liz to do it for nothing.

Becoming a manager, I discovered what motivated her. The company would hold out 20 percent of the bonus unless the store manager kept within all the parameters of how much was allowed to be spent on the store and on loss prevention. Overtime counted against them. So, if she paid too much in overtime, she couldn't get that 20 percent back every six months. It was to her benefit not to pay me overtime, that way she would get that 20 percent back. Understand that her bonus check that Christmas was $18,000, so 20 percent was a huge amount not to get back.

The comment was made at the managers meeting that I went to that year: 'you can't let those people work any overtime because if you don't pay, when they quit, that's when they sue Zales'. That's how I knew Zales had been sued multiple times for that.

I'm angry because she lied to me. Also because there should have been something I could have done but I didn't contact a lawyer before quitting, only after. I learned that two years past the occurrence date was too late. I quit in June 2008 after five and a half years with the corporation and haven't seen one penny of that overtime pay."

If you feel you are owed overtime pay, consult a lawyer as soon as possible for timely and valuable counsel.