Lincoln Electric Workers Must Litigate OT Claims Individually

A lawsuit accusing Lincoln Electric Co. of failing to pay plant workers for certain overtime work can’t move forward as a class action because the employees’ circumstances are too diverse for one case, a federal court in Ohio said.

Eric Roby alleges the welding products manufacturer had a practice in place at two Ohio plants of automatically deducting 19.8 minutes from each pieceworker’s eight-hour shift as an unpaid meal break. Lincoln’s company handbook said the breaks are mandatory, but employee affidavits stated workers often didn’t or couldn’t stop working, resulting in instances of unpaid overtime.

The U.S. District Court for ...