Warehouse workers sue Keurig Dr Pepper over crushing quotas

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (CN) — Three former warehouse workers sued Keurig Dr Pepper on Wednesday claiming they had to work 12-hour days to meet illegal quotas without receiving overtime pay and required meal and rest breaks.

The former hourly workers, who worked at the company’s facility in Redlands, California, seek to represent all current and former nonexempt Keurig Dr Pepper employees in California over the past four years in a class action.

In their complaint filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, the workers list 11 separate violations of California’s labor law, such as failure to pay overtime wages, as well as a claim for civil penalties under the state’s Private Attorney General Act, which allows individuals to step into the shoes of the state to enforce provisions of the labor code.

They accuse Keurig Dr Pepper of punishing employees as retaliation for complaining about the unreasonable quotas and other violations of the state’s labor code. Under California law, a production quota is illegal if it prevents workers from taking meal, rest and bathroom breaks.

“Defendants had a duty to ensure its production demands did not interfere or prevent compliance with plaintiffs and class members’ rights to lawful meal periods, rest periods, bathroom breaks, and/or expose them to safety hazards,” the three former workers argue. “Defendants willfully, knowingly, and intentionally failed to establish legally compliant quotas, placing profits above concern for employee safety.”

The former employees also claim Keurig Dr Pepper failed to maintain proper temperature controls at the facility, which caused them to suffer exhaustion and dehydration while they were required to meet the company’s unlawful quotas.

Representatives of Keurig Dr Pepper didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The workers claim failure to pay all wages, meal period violations, rest period violations, recovery period violations, failure to produce wage statements, failure to provide personnel records, failure to produce signed records, failure to implement and maintain legal temperature controls, failure to provide accurate itemized wage records, waiting time penalties, failure to reimburse for business expenses and unfair business practices.

They ask for class certification and for unspecified compensatory damages as well as restitution.

The plaintiffs are represented by Jose Garay ALPC in Long Beach, California.

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