Fraud Friday – Employees Claim Bank of America Paid Them Insufficiently During PPP

August 11, 2023

Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor

Fraud Friday – Employees Claim Bank of America Paid Them Insufficiently During PPP

A class action lawsuit was recently filed against Bank of America for allegedly paying their workers inadequately during the Paycheck Protection Program. Employees across the country worked grueling hours early in the pandemic to execute a once-in-a-lifetime program that would keep small businesses afloat during a torrential downpour. In spite of PPP being a highly lucrative opportunity for the bank, they allegedly believed the wages given to employees for their countless hours of overtime were “inflated.”

Bank of America offered nondiscretionary incentive pay for workers who worked on PPP loans. For some, this was based on their average earnings and commissions in the preceding three months of the pandemic, and for others, this was an increase to their usual hourly pay. Some employees who worked strenuous extra hours on certain days were offered premium pay rates.

The lawsuit states that for the first weeks of PPP, Bank of America appropriately calculated overtime by including their nondiscretionary PPP incentive pay as part of the workers’ regular rates. Later, this incentive no longer applied to their overtime pay. Overtime instead was paid at a rate of one and a half times their lower, pre-pandemic base hourly rate according to the plaintiff’s claims.

“As a result of this practice, workers who stepped up to the critical work of administering the PPP loan program were short-changed the wages they were owed.” Bank of America violated the law by miscalculating employees’ rates of pay. After frequently working more than 70 hours a week, employees were “significantly underpaid what they were owed.”

The plaintiffs are demanding a jury trial for all issues that can be tried. Three individuals are bringing this Class and Collective Action against Bank of America to represent the many employees affected by the alleged conduct.

Source:
Class and Collective Action Complaint