By Rebecca Bowe
It’s payday for about 700 Pacific Gas & Electric employees – and for some, the check will cover long hours they put in more than a decade ago.
As part of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit, PG&E must fork over $17.25 million in unpaid overtime going back, in some cases, to 1996. The settlement, approved by a San Francisco Superior Court judge on July 30, is the final conclusion of Conley, et al. v. Pacific Gas & Electric Company, a legal battle that wore on for nine years. It requires the utility giant to hand over back pay and attorneys’ fees for roughly 700 current and former employees who alleged that they were improperly classified as exempt from overtime and denied overtime compensation.
John Conley, who is still employed by the utility, worked as a Senior New Business Representative at PG&E when he and three other coworkers filed the lawsuit in March of 2000. “Some of us were working ten-plus hours a day, and one day on the weekend for four to six hours,” Conley said.