Unpaid Overtime Case Filed Against Charles River Laboratories

An unpaid overtime lawsuit has recently been filed by the experienced overtime lawyers at Coffman Legal against Charles River Laboratories. This new collective action lawsuit alleges that Charles River Laboratories did not pay its hourly production/manufacturing employees for all overtime hours worked.

The new overtime case alleges that Charles River Laboratories requires its hourly production/manufacturing employees to arrive before the scheduled start of their shifts in order to put on sanitary clothing and engage in other pre-shift work such as setting up lab equipment. At the end of the shift, these employees also must spend time taking off their sanitary clothing. However, the lawsuit further alleges that Charles River Laboratories does not compensate these employees for this work before and after their shifts and only pays for the employee’s scheduled shift time.

In addition, the lawsuit filed by our unpaid wage lawyers states that Charles River Laboratories requires a meal break deduction from its production/manufacturing employees’ hours worked. However, because these employees must spend time taking off their sanitary clothing at the beginning of the meal break and then putting the sanitary clothing back on at the end of the meal break, these employees do not receive a full, uninterrupted meal break. Despite these employees not receiving a full meal break, the lawsuit alleges that Charles River Laboratories takes it out of their pay even though employees do not enjoy a complete meal break.

If employees’ meal breaks are missed, shortened, or otherwise interrupted by job duties, then employers must pay employees for the full length of their meal breaks.. Because Charles River Laboratories allegedly took these unlawful meal break deductions, its hourly production/manufacturing employees have accrued unpaid overtime.

This new lawsuit seeks unpaid overtime wages since September 18, 2021. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division at Cleveland and is titled Charlie Rhone v. Charles River Laboratories. The case number is 1:24-cv-1575.