Cognizant has agreed to pay $5.7 million compensation to former employees for underpaid overtime hours
IT giant Cognizant has agreed to pay its former employees $5.7 million to compensate them for unpaid overtime hours after they reached a class-action settlement agreement.
According to a report in the Times of India, Cognizant’s former employee Debi Mishra and other employees, who were part of the class action, worked in the quality engineering & assurance (QE&A) team. Mishra worked in the team for Cognizant’s client Blue Shield based in California, until he resigned in 2015. In the lawsuit, Mishra alleged that Cognizant underpaid overtime by failing to include certain amounts when calculating the regular rate of pay.
The publication, which has a copy of the court document, mentioned that Mishra received a letter in 2012 saying the terms and conditions of his employment had changed. Cognizant informed him that his “position has been classified as overtime eligible”. The letter also indicated that Mishra was guaranteed to earn “no less than $62,100”, and that the bonus would be added to keep his annual income at this level.
However, the actual payments that Mishra received were much lower. Mishra’s counsel retained an expert forensic economist to review and analyse the data. According to his calculations, the total potential damages for all employees involved was $11,219,891.
Cognizant rejected this analysis and contended that Mishra and other class members “did not actually work overtime hours and instead merely recorded overtime as a means of obtaining faster and more evenly spread pay.”
The original complaint was filed in August 25, 2017. About a year later, both the parties participated in a full day of private mediation before a retired judge but did not reach a resolution.
Now, as per the latest settlement agreement, Cognizant to pay about half of what was estimated as damages by the plaintiffs. Most of this amount will be divided among the class members, the daily mentioned.
Note- This story has not been edited by SightsIn Plus staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed. Sources –—Times Now
