In recent news, Delta faces a class action questioning whether their standard business practices regarding overtime payment to employees who swap shifts violate labor law.

The Case: Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc

The Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division

The Case No.: 1:23-cv-05712-TWT

The Plaintiffs: Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc

Delta allows employees to swap their work shifts with co-workers trained to complete the same job duties, but according to the lawsuit, Delta does not pay overtime when employees who have swapped shifts then work extra time during a work period. The Delta employees included in the class are customer service employees at airports across the United States, reservation and sales representatives who may perform customer service duties from call center locations across the United States, and tower coordinators working at any of Delta’s eight hubs nationwide. The proposed class would potentially include tens of thousands of Delta workers denied overtime due to Delta’s standard business practices.

The Defendant: Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc

The defendant in the case, Delta Air Lines Inc., faces a class action lawsuit regarding failure to pay overtime to employees who have “swapped shifts.” When employees swap shifts, the shift is still worked, and the company receives the employee labor. Under Delta’s employee contract, swaps do not count toward overtime, and even if Delta employees work more because of a swapped shift, it does not result in overtime pay. Delta’s practice is built on the argument that if overtime is defined as work performed more than the standard “full time” scheduled hours, then swapped shifts, by definition, are not overtime, as they weren’t technically scheduled hours. Instead, they could technically consider the swapped shift a reallocated scheduled shift. However, the lawsuit argues that when an employee swaps a shift and ultimately works extra hours during that period, but does not receive overtime pay. When this occurs, Delta treats the swapped shift as unpaid time.

The Case: Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc

In the case, Goodyear v. Delta Air Lines Inc, the class argues that the Overtime Contract’s passive language indicates that when calculating overtime eligibility for Delta employees, the significant point is whether an employee’s scheduled hours in a specified work period were worked, not whether that employee was the one that worked them.

If you have questions about how to file a California overtime class action lawsuit, please get in touch with Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik DeBlouw L.L.P. Experienced employment law attorneys are ready to assist you in various law firm offices in San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside, and Chicago.