July 14th, 2019
Posted By
Kerry V. O’Brien

On June 13, 2019, Judge Jane Boyle of the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, granted the O'Brien Law Firm's request (working with co-counsel Kay Goggin of the Goggin Law Firm of Dallas) to send "notice to participate" to 300 current and former Etech chat representative employees who worked on the Verizion Fios chat center account at the Dallas Call Center. As alleged by the class representatives, Etech has engaged in time-shaving practices by choosing not to use a time clock to record the start and stop time for these employees' work shifts. Instead, Etech has paid these employees based on tracking their time only when they are actually in the chat system, and through a flawed process called "exception time," where a manager has to approve (and often did not approve) any other pieces of time that are legally payable work but during which the chat representative was not actually logged into the chat system (like team meetings and computer system disruptions).

The class representatives allege that this exception time system consistently resulted in the chat representatives being substantially shorted their pay each week. Etech fought hard to keep the employee group from receiving notice to participate, spending around 18 hours cross-examining the O'Brien Law Firm's clients and witnesses in depositions to try to get information to prevent the Court from approving O'Brien's ability to send notice to the entire employee group. They failed. The class notice, which is going out the week of July 15, 2019, will allow all responding participants to claim their unpaid overtime and regular wages, as well. If you are a current or former Etech employee and have had problems with Etech's timekeeping practices, contact the O'Brien Law Firm at 844-OBRIEN4 (844-627-4364) at no charge.

UPDATE: In August 2020, Plaintiff Wilson and the group of former Etech employees who opted into the overtime lawsuit informally resolved the dispute with Etech to the satisfaction of all parties.