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Infosys faces lawsuit from ex employee

Bengaluru: Infosys faces a fresh lawsuit in the US by a former employee Anuj Kapoor, who worked on a project for CVS Health Corporation, a retail pharmacy and healthcare company based in Rhode Island.

Kapoor filed a suit against Infosys in June, alleging the company made him work more than 1,000 hours of overtime without any remuneration.  

Kapoor said he has worked for long hours. He has worked for 11-hour days at times and was only paid for eight hours or fewer as CVS ‘refused to be billed for overtime wages.’ The filing further read, “Plaintiff estimates that between May of 2015 and June of 2017, he worked approximately one thousand eighty-four overtime hours for Defendant, each of which was over and above his weekly forty hours, without any form of compensation.’’ 

However, the IT major responded that the employee was an ‘hourly’ worker on an H1-B visa even though Infosys had listed him as a salaried employee in an application with the Department of Labour, a reason for its Wage and Hour Department in the State of Rhode Island to initiate an investigation into the matter.  The authority is also investigating the possibility that Infosys is filing for H1-B visas under the ‘exempt salaried’ category while using the employees as non-exempt hourly workers. 

Bengaluru based IT lawyer Sajai Singh said, overtime is recorded electronically whether an employee works from office, home or a cafe. Recording and reading of work hours are automated, leaving no or very little human intervention and errors. It looks like this issue is due to lack of understanding of the engagement contract by parties involved.’’ Back in 2008, Infosys faced a similar lawsuit, also regarding on payment of overtime dues. Eventually, the company had to cough up a large sum and pay $26 mn to the California Division of Labour Standards Enforcement to settle case.