Dunkin’ Donuts in Long Island Sued for Overtime Violations

A Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee was sued for implementing a scheme to deny workers overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and New York Labor Law (“NYLL”). The franchisee owns Dunkin’ Donuts stores in Shirley, Riverhead, Southampton, Southold, and West Hampton, and other locations in Long Island. The class action lawsuit filed in New York Federal Court alleges that a counter-person at the franchisee’s Shirley location was cheated out of his overtime pay and was not paid one and one-half times his hourly rate for the hours that he worked in excess of forty per week. Lawyers for the Dunkin’ Donuts workers say that the company had a corporate policy of skimming overtime from the paychecks of workers at all of its Long Island locations. Attorneys for the employees claim that Dunkin’ Donuts fabricated workers’ pay stubs by deliberately decreasing the number of hours on each pay stub such that the gross amount resulted in the same hourly rate for all the hours that employees worked.