Lawsuit Claims AA Time-Tracking Tech Shortchanges Employees

A federal court will consider whether features of an employee time-tracking system put in place by American Airlines cheat workers out of pay for some of the hours spent on the job.

Some hourly American Airlines employees say that a time-tracking system used by the company unfairly and possibly illegally trims time and ultimately, money from their paychecks. A lawsuit filed in a New Jersey federal court will decide if mechanics, ramp workers and bag handlers have been shortchanged by the technology.

According to court papers, features of the time-tracking technology could cost the airline’s employees big bucks over the long haul. Workers say that the system automatically deducts for lunch breaks and anticipated downtime even if circumstances require employees to work through their allotted mealtimes and breaks. The time-tracking software is also alleged to round away overtime and ignore any work hours that occur before or after regularly scheduled shifts.

The airline has denied that the time-tracking system cheats employees in any way. American Airlines representatives point out that the software may actually benefit employees at the company’s expense in some cases.

“American pays its team members for all the work they perform,” American Airlines spokesperson Matt Miller told The Wall Street Journal this week. “That’s the case in New Jersey and throughout our system.”

The lawsuit, which American Airlines employees were certified to participate in earlier this year by a federal judge, claims that the company employs the technology in a way that routinely costs employees money. In particular, plaintiffs claim that the airline’s aggressive and automatic payroll rounding policy “consistently and artificially reduced the total time employees are credited with working.”

While the money at stake often involves less than an hour’s pay per shift, the lawsuit maintains that those losses are substantial over time.

The airline reportedly has made a similar argument in its defense. According to The New Jersey Law Journal, company officials implemented the new controls because it was felt that workers who punched in early for shifts often “socialized or watched TV, rather than actually work.”

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