Macon, Georgia Security Company Hit with Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unpaid Overtime

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

C P Security Groups, Inc. faces a proposed collective action in which two employees claim they and other workers have not been paid proper wages for every hour worked.

The 18-page case claims the Macon, Georgia-based defendant, who provides private security services to clients such as Macon Transit Authority, Greyhound, Walsh Honda, Macon Marriott City Center and several other local businesses, has willfully refused to pay workers time-and-a-half wages for weekly hours worked in excess of 40, and retaliated against those who complained about their pay.

Per the lawsuit, the plaintiffs have respectively worked for C P Security Groups since June 2019 and 2014 and typically put in between 70 and 80 hours per week. The case claims that although the defendant did pay employees “some amount of overtime compensation” prior to 2019, “it is unclear” whether the overtime amounts were properly paid. For example, one of the plaintiffs alleges that he received for most of 2018 $124.75 in overtime pay on each paystub regardless of how many overtime hours he worked during each pay period. The case claims the plaintiff realized “there might be a problem with his overtime pay” after reviewing a Fair Labor Standards Act notice posted at one of his job assignments in 2019.

After the plaintiff received no response from the defendant to a letter inquiring about his overtime pay, the man, according to the suit, questioned his supervisor and was told that he was not working overtime, but “extra time.”

On another occasion, the case says, the second plaintiff questioned the supervisor regarding overtime and was allegedly told that the defendant “was being investigated and audited.” The lawsuit says the supervisor told the plaintiff that he was informed by auditors that he was not permitted to give employees “extra time” and then allegedly chastised the employee for discussing compensation with other workers.

The plaintiffs suspect in the lawsuit that the defendant is not actually being audited by any state or local agencies, and that their supervisor mentioned the audit “in an attempt to try to convince Plaintiffs that regulators were already looking into the matter and to otherwise discourage Plaintiffs from making another complaint.”

The suit alleges the defendant has retaliated against the plaintiffs and other employees who have complained about overtime by reassigning or taking away their hours.

The lawsuit goes on to allege that in addition to the apparent overtime violations, the defendant has also failed to pay employees for every hour worked by changing their recorded hours to reflect that they worked fewer hours.

The plaintiffs allege that, in addition to the occasions on which they were not paid at all for the hours they worked, they are owed wages for approximately 1,558 and 1,215 hours, respectively, of overtime.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s newsletter here.