PeopleReady, TrueBlue Accused of Wage Violations, Retaliatory Discharge

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A former employee of PeopleReady, Inc. and TrueBlue, Inc. is at the center of a proposed class and collective action accusing the staffing companies of tampering with employees’ timecards to avoid paying them for overtime hours worked. The plaintiff, who was employed as a staffing specialist, says he put in between 50 and 70 hours each week but was only paid for approximately 40 due to his employers’ alleged practice of habitually altering his computerized timecards to misrepresent the number of hours he worked. As described in the complaint:

“Defendants’ supervisors had access to the Staffers’ computerized timecards and were instructed by Defendants not to allow Staffers to record overtime. When Staffers worked hours in excess of forty (40) hours in one week (ie: overtime hours) and recorded it, their supervisors manually reduced the amount of hours recorded on the Staffers’ timecards before submitting them to Defendants’ headquarters—effectively forcing Staffers to work ‘off-the-clock.’”

This supposed practice of altering timecards was acknowledged by the plaintiff’s supervisor who told him “he better manage his time or Defendants would ‘manage it for him,’” the complaint claims. When the man complained about his improper compensation to his branch manager, he was reportedly told, “[Y]ou can get a portion of your overtime, but not all of it because then I would not have a job,” insinuating, according to the complaint, that the defendants would fire the branch manager if he gave the plaintiff his due wages.

The plaintiff, who was supposedly the only male employee at his branch besides the branch manager, goes on to charge that he was discriminated against by his female supervisor, who made comments such as, “[Y]ou are such the typical male,” and “[M]en are so stupid.” The man alleges he was eventually fired “in retaliation for his complaints of a hostile work environment.”