AAA Arizona Customer Service Reps Owed Unpaid Wages for Off-the-Clock Work, Lawsuit Alleges

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Two former AAA Arizona, Inc. customer service representatives claim the company failed to pay them and similarly situated employees proper wages for hours spent working off the clock before each shift and making up for monthly “out of conformance” time.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs and other customer service reps at the defendant’s Tucson, Arizona call center were paid an hourly wage to answer telephone calls from AAA customers and assist them with their vehicles or travel. Because workers were required to be able to take calls immediately upon the start of their scheduled shifts, they spent uncompensated time prior to clocking in clearing their computer’s cookies, opening applications and activating the defendant’s landing page, the suit says, referring to this pre-shit work as “integral.”

Moreover, the case claims workers frequently had to restart their machines several times before they were prepared to start taking calls due to AAA’s “underperforming” computers. According to the complaint, customer service reps spent roughly 30 minutes performing pre-shift off-the-clock work each day, which equates to 2.5 hours of unpaid overtime per week.

“For example, if a CSR worked forty-two and a half (42½) hours in a workweek of which forty (40) hours were ‘on the clock’ pursuant to their forty (40) hour workweek schedule and two and a half (2½) hours were ‘off-the-clock’ performing Pre-Shift Work, that CSR was only paid for forty (40) hours of work at their straight-time rate,” the complaint reads.

The lawsuit goes on to allege customer service reps were required to make up for any “out of conformance time” by the end of the month in which it was accrued. “Out of conformance time” is, according to the lawsuit, the amount of time between when a worker clocked out of AAA’s time-recording system and signed out of the defendant’s telephone system after clocking out. If, for example, a worker forgot to sign out of the defendant’s telephone system during their break or at the end of their shift, they were considered “out of conformance,” according to the lawsuit.

Per the complaint, workers were required to make up for their “out of conformance” time by working additional hours on top of their 40-hour workweek during the month in which the time was accrued. Though this time spent working should have been compensable, the defendant “did not compensate the CSRs anything, including overtime,” for hours spent making up for “out of conformance” time, the case alleges.

“Thus, Defendant required the CSRs to work ‘off-the-clock’ by requiring them to make-up ‘out of conformance time,’” the lawsuit avers.

The case looks to represent a collective that includes:

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