LAS VEGAS -- A lawsuit that accuses Circle K Stores Inc. of failing to pay overtime wages to convenience-store managers may proceed as a national class action, a federal judge in Las Vegas ruled in late August, reported The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In the case before U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II, the plaintiff, store manager Charles Grahl, filed the motion on behalf of 124 other current and former Circle K store managers who the suit claims were misclassified by Circle K as "exempt" from the Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA) overtime provisions.
The class encompasses all current and former employees of Circle K for the three years immediately preceding the date Grahl filed his complaint, Feb. 27, 2014.
Las Vegas attorney Andrew Rempfer, who represents approximately 250 plaintiffs in the case, told the newspaper that number could grow to the “thousands.”
According to the court documents obtained by CSP Daily News:
- The store manager job description is the same at all stores. Circle K corporate sets the store policies, practices related to management and employees governance on a nationally uniform and structured plan.
- The corporate schedule is a mandatory overtime schedule for store managers, who are all treated as salaried exempt employees.
- When hourly employees do not show up for work or unable to show up for work, store managers are required to report to the store and work that person’s shift.
- Circle K has a corporate mandate that store managers work at least Monday through Friday, 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturdays 6 a.m. to noon. That equals a minimum of 56 hours per week store managers must work per week without overtime compensation.
- The store managers do not exercise independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance affecting the company or store. All important decisions are made by market managers.
- They spend approximately 80% of their time performing the same tasks and job duties as the clerks and cashiers and other hourly employees in the store such as assistant managers, such as working the register, clearing the store, cleaning the bathrooms and gas pumps, performing food preparation, stocking shelves, inventory, taking care of the shelves, unloading the merchandise and servicing customers of the store. Their primary duties do not require any decision-making on significant matters affecting the store. Their limited management duties, if any, involve placing orders and filling out forms and counting and reporting money.
- They are all paid on a salary basis and have never been paid for their overtime hours.
Circle K—the U.S. convenience-store arm along with Kangaroo Express of Laval, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.—owns and operates more than 3,300 convenience stores throughout the United States.
Circle K has not responded to a request for comment on the case.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.