Bank of America sued over employees having to wait 30 minutes to boot up their computers before work
Bank of America, a major bank, has been hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that employees were forced to perform time-consuming computer startup tasks without pay. Employees say they had to spend 15 to 30 minutes each morning booting up their computers.
Bank of America faces lawsuit over alleged unpaid computer boot-up time | HRD America
Bank of America sued over not paying workers for PC boot up time in proposed class action lawsuit | Tom's Hardware
Tava Martin, a former Bank of America analyst who filed the lawsuit, said the company's complex systems required remote employees to log in to multiple systems, download spreadsheets, and connect to virtual private networks each morning, which could take 15 to 30 minutes.
These employees were supposed to answer customer calls as soon as they started work, but if their PCs were left unbooted for a long time, they risked losing their evaluations and, in the worst case scenario, being fired. Therefore, the employees were said to have been dreading starting up their PCs.
However, Bank of America did not recognize the overtime work as work and did not pay the employees.
The unpaid work didn't stop at startup. The company's systems automatically shut down during lunch breaks, forcing employees to repeat parts of the login process, resulting in about three to five minutes of unpaid work on most days, and even longer if a full reboot was required. Furthermore, after work, employees had to safely shut down their PCs, which took an additional two to three minutes.
Martin said, 'The Department of Labor's guidance states that turning on a computer is considered work, and that pre- and post-work activities must also be recorded,' and is demanding that he be paid the wages he was due.
According to technology media outlet Tom's Hardware, court decisions on similar cases have varied. Some have ruled that the employee could have done other things while the system was running, and therefore denied the time as working hours. Others have ruled that the system startup was clearly core to the employee's work and unavoidable, and have upheld the employee's claim.
Martin is filing both a class action and collective lawsuit, which, if approved, would allow him to represent an interstate group of employees. Martin estimates that hundreds, if not thousands, of workers could be affected.
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