Longer hours lead to lawsuits over pay
As employers seek to squeeze ever more productivity out of employees, workers are increasingly being forced to work uncompensated overtime---leading to a wave of lawsuits and Labor Department investigations over Fair Labor Standards Act violations. Wal-Mart, the world?s largest retailer, is currently the subject of a lawsuit alleging that it forces employees to work before punching in and after punching out, oftentimes for up to three hours. White-collar workers---like those who recently settled an FLSA violations case with Starbucks---are also experiencing the pressure to work more without being paid more, finding themselves required to work overtime on non-managerial tasks while being denied the time-and-a-half overtime pay that employers are required to pay non-managerial employees.
See "Longer hours lead to lawsuits over pay", FAY HANSEN, The Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 2002