ANKENY, Iowa -- Convenience store chain Casey's General Stores Inc. is being sued in federal by two assistant managers who accused the company of refusing to pay them overtime, the Associated Press said.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Sioux City, Iowa, alleged that the company violated federal law by avoiding paying overtime. It seeks class-action status to compensate anyone who worked as an assistant manager during a three-year period prior to filing. Attorneys who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the two female managers claim there could [image-nocss] be thousands of current and former assistant managers in the class.
"I was required to work several hours per week off the clock," said Kristina Jones, a former assistant manager and a plaintiff in the case. Jones said in a statement that she had worked at several Casey's stores in Des Moines.
"Casey's relied heavily on assistant managers to pick up the slack and keep the store running, but failed to pay me all of my overtime," she said.
Kim Marrs, who said she worked at Casey's stores in LaPlata and Waverly, Mo., said she complained several times about not being paid for all the hours she worked.
"These assistant managers deserve an opportunity to recover their unpaid wages," Scott Peters, an attorney representing the women, said in a statement.
The lawsuit said the assistant managers were paid an hourly rate and were nonexempt under federal law, meaning they should be paid overtime.
Assistant manager duties included cooking and packaging food, cleaning the store, working the cash register and providing customer service, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs' lawyers allege that Casey's knew the employees regularly worked more than 40 hours a week without compensation.
Eli Wirtz, an attorney for Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's General Stores, told AP that the company does not comment on pending litigation.
The retailer runs 1,463 stores in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. All but 15 franchise stores are company-owned.
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