A group of 911 dispatchers have filed a class action lawsuit against the village of Hillside and the Proviso Central Dispatch Center, claiming they have been wrongly denied overtime pay, despite working long hours, often over 40 hours a week.
They claim this violates federal and state wage and hour laws, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The Proviso Central Dispatch Center is based in Hillside, and overseen by the village of Hillside. It serves three communities in Cook County's western suburbs, including Hillside, Westchester and Berkley.
"Plaintiffs were not compensated for regularly scheduled hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week at one and one-half times their regular rates of pay, otherwise known as overtime," the suit says. "Plaintiffs only received the overtime rate of pay if they worked additional hours beyond their regularly scheduled shifts."
Instead of receiving overtime pay for any week in which the dispatchers worked more than 40 hours a week, the village averaged the worker's time over a 14-day period, the suit said.
" Defendants have known that its practice of averaging hours across a two-week period of time is not permissible under the Fair Labor Standards Act and that Plaintiffs and all others similarly situated should have been paid at their overtime rates of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in each seven day workweek," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit seeks either actual damages from the alleged unlawful conduct or statutory damages of $1,000 per violation, plus attorney fees and court costs. It seeks to represent nine named plaintiffs "on behalf of all other current and former employees similarly situated to them."
The plaintiffs are represented by attorney Raymond G. Garza of Karlson Garza McQueary, of Chicago.