According to a prospective class-action complaint, Honda incorrectly assessed employees’ hours worked when its timekeeping software, Kronos, was down due to a ransomware assault.
The UKG timekeeping and payroll program failed in December 2021, leaving many clients without service for many weeks. At the time, employment law lawyers advised concerned companies to switch to a backup timekeeping mechanism. Where earlier timekeeping data was destroyed, companies were instructed to make every attempt to correctly pay employees; ideas included requesting employees to self-report those hours and paying them based on previous pay periods.
A Honda employee claimed that Honda failed to maintain proper account of his and colleagues’ hours for at least a portion of the period after the outage.
Instead, it employed different ways to estimate workers’ hours, according to the lawsuit, resulting in the plaintiff and other workers being paid less than the Fair Labor Standards Act allows, particularly for overtime hours.
“Honda could have implemented any number of techniques to precisely track and pay its employees for all hours worked in a timely manner.” Instead of precisely recording hours and paying employees for overtime, Honda opted to pay these employees arbitrarily, regardless of the overtime hours they worked or the normal rates at which they were scheduled to be paid, according to the lawsuit.
“It was possible for Honda to have its employees and supervisors record proper hours so that they could be paid the full and correct amounts owed for the work they accomplished for the firm.” “However, Honda elected not to do so,” according to the complaint.
