Sport Chalet Workers Sue for Overtime Pay

Lower-level managers at the Sport Chalet Inc. sporting goods chain are suing the company on claims that they are wrongly classified as managers and that they are owed overtime pay for constant, long hours at work.

The lawsuit is the second one filed recently in Orange County Superior Court accusing a sporting goods chain of refusing to pay overtime to workers classified as managers but who claim they perform few, if any, managerial tasks.

Last month, salaried assistant managers at Sportmart sued the chain’s parent company, Gart Sport Co. in Colorado, for overtime pay.

The suit against Sport Chalet in La Canada seeks an unspecified amount of back pay for about 130 current employees plus an unknown number of former employees dating back four years.

“They are literally working customer service all day long,” said Rene Barge, a Fountain Valley lawyer for the plaintiffs. “These people basically aren’t supervising anybody. Other than writing schedules, I’m not aware of any management duties.”

The suit contends that salaried employees classified as area managers work up to 60 hours a week and spend more than half their time on non-managerial tasks, such as sweeping floors, stocking shelves and processing shipments.

“The so-called exempt employees pick up the slack, and the company saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages,” she said. “They work in their department alone all day. They may have the help of a cashier who works up front or a part-time salesclerk who comes in at night.”

A Sport Chalet spokeswoman in La Canada said the company was not aware of the lawsuit, which was filed last week, and declined to comment.

In California, companies that deny overtime to salaried employees had been required to prove that the workers spend more than 50% of their time “primarily engaged” in management-style duties, such as writing reports or supervising workers.

But last month the state Industrial Welfare Commission approved a change in labor law that will allow businesses to more easily exempt employees from overtime wages by changing the critical definition of what constitutes a management employee.

The new rule considerably broadens the definition by adding an “occasional standard” of duties that employers deem part of the “realistic requirements” of the job, even if they include mundane tasks.

Union leaders are angry over the rule change, contending that it could prevent thousands of workers from receiving overtime pay. Barge also expressed outrage over the change and does not yet know what effect it will have on her suit.

The lawsuits against Sport Chalet and Sportmart follow in the footsteps of similar suits against the Rite Aid drugstore chain, Albertsons supermarkets, Robinsons-May department stores and Taco Bell eateries. Earlier this year, the Mervyn’s department store chain, while not admitting wrongdoing, agreed to pay $11.3 million to settle claims by thousands of salaried managers and assistant managers.