Jimmy John's, the "freaky fast" sandwich staple of America's college towns, is being sued by two former employees for what they describe as "systematic wage theft" at the fast food chain.
In their lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, Karolis Kubelskas and Emily Brunner claim that they were forced to regularly work off the clock because of unreasonably low payroll budgets provided to individual Jimmy John's stores, leading to minimum wage and overtime violations.
Jimmy John's has "intentionally and repeatedly misrepresented the true time worked by their hourly employees" in order to keep costs down and dodge overtime laws, the complaint alleges. The lawsuit is a proposed class action, with Kubelskas and Brunner arguing that such pay practices come from "corporate set policies" and would apply to other workers.Jimmy John's did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to Kubelskas and Brunner, Jimmy John's workers aren't given enough time to complete all their closing duties at the end of the day, at which point managers clock them out regardless of whether or not they continue to work. The practice is exacerbated, they claim, by a company policy that bases managers' bonuses largely on whether or not they hit their targets on labor costs.
The system, they say, "has the practical effect of creating widespread wage theft."
