By Daniel Wiessner
– Wells Fargo Co was hit with a proposed class action lawsuit on Wednesday accusing the bank of routinely requiring hourly employees in Florida to work overtime without pay.
The complaint filed in federal court in Orlando, Florida claims Wells Fargo expected registered client associates, or RCAs, to work more than 40 hours per week but failed to pay them overtime premiums required by federal wage law.
Plaintiff David Brandt, who worked at a Wells Fargo branch in Orlando for eight years, says the company systematically deprived RCAs of overtime pay “knowingly, willingly or with reckless disregard” for its legal obligations.
Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brandt’s lawyers at the firm Morgan & Morgan said in a statement that their aim was “to hold the bank accountable for these alleged violations to ensure this practice ends and never happens again.”
Class actions alleging unpaid overtime are common, particularly against banks, and can be costly. Last year, Wells Fargo paid about $96 million to settle claims that its home mortgage consultants in California were not paid properly under a commission-based pay structure.
In 2020, the bank settled overtime pay claims by a nationwide class of nearly 9,000 employees for $35 million. Wells Fargo denied wrongdoing in both cases.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr)
