According to the lawsuit (case number 37-2013-00073549-CU-OE-CTL, filed in San Diego County Superior Court for the State of California), employees were required to take part in security searchers each time they left the store, such as for lunch breaks or at the end of their shifts. Prior to doing so, however, they had already clocked out of Urban Outfitter’s timekeeping system, meaning they were required to stay on-site but were not paid for the time spent waiting for and undergoing the security search.The plaintiff, Jasmin Perez, alleges she worked more than eight hours in a day and 40 hours in a workweek but was not paid overtime for those hours.
The lawsuit alleges that Urban Outfitters had “a mutable timekeeping system which failed and continues to fail to correctly record all hours worked by plaintiff and California class members, including overtime hours worked.” This allegedly enabled Urban Outfitters to “systematically, unlawfully and unilaterally manipulate the time records by changing the hours worked by plaintiff and California class members,” allowing the defendants to avoid paying employees for overtime hours worked. The lawsuit further alleges that the plaintiff regularly missed meal or rest breaks.
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The Urban Outfitters lawsuit is similar to one filed in California earlier this year against Apple, which alleges that employees routinely waited 10 to 15 minutes after every shift and at the start of their unpaid meal breaks to undergo a security check but were not paid for that time. That lawsuit, case number 3:13-cv-03451-EDL, claimed Apple violated the California Labor Code for not properly paying overtime wages. One plaintiff alleged that time spent waiting for bag checks could add up to more than an hour of unpaid overtime a week.