Have you ever eaten at a Chipotle’s restaurant? The company made $4.5 billion in revenue from selling food in 2015. That is over 600 million burritos worth of sales, and that means if you haven’t eaten at Chipotle, you probably know someone who has. But how many people do you know who have worked at the restaurant? Well, one New Jersey woman wants you to know her story about working for the restaurant chain, and how it avoided paying her for some of her work.
Why Chipotle Didn’t Pay a Woman for Overtime Hours
In 2014, a woman from New Jersey started working as an apprentice at a local Chipotle restaurant. She mostly worked on the food assembly line making burritos and other food staples for customers. During this time, she worked around 50 hours a week, but Chipotle only paid her for 40 hours. How did the company get away with not paying for the full 50 hours?
As it turns out, the apprentice program at Chipotle is a store manager training program, and so these trainees are classified as managers. That means they get a salary and no overtime, but are these workers truly classified for this pay grade?
Why Would Chipotle Owe This Woman Overtime Pay?
According to federal law, to be classified as a manager you must make at least $47,476 a year and you must have management duties. The New Jersey woman, who worked mostly as a food assembler, claims that she met neither of those requirements. That means she should have been paid as an hourly worker, and thus been paid for overtime.
This woman along with 10,000 others have filed a lawsuit against Chipotle asking for the back pay they are due. The company could wind up paying these employees, and former employees, millions of dollars just like Superstorm Sandy workers. The New Jersey lost wage attorneys here at Keefe Law Firm are helping Superstorm Sandy recovery workers fight for their fair wage after being underpaid for their work helping our state rebuild. Will these workers recover their wages too?
