File — A class action lawsuit filed against the San Francisco grocery chain claims that some employees regularly worked overtime and did not receive overtime wages.
Alyssa Pereira / SFGateA former Bi-Rite employee has filed a class action lawsuit against the San Francisco grocery chain with a series of allegations that include unpaid overtime, wage statement violations and rest break violations.
In the lawsuit filed on Jan. 3 at the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco, lawyers for Connor Brown, a former employee at the Bi-Rite store at 550 Divisadero St., claimed that Brown and members in the class action lawsuit regularly worked “off-the-clock” and “were not paid minimum wage for all hours worked.”
“Plaintiff … alleges that Defendants engaged in a pattern and practice of wage abuse against their hourly-paid and/or non-exempt employees,” the lawsuit read in part. During overtime work, Bi-Rite also failed to provide staff with all meal and rest breaks, the lawsuit continued.
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The lawsuit claims that Brown and other employees frequently worked more than 40-hour weeks and that Bi-Rite failed to pay them proper overtime pay. Moreover, the lawsuit alleged that Bi-Rite “had a policy, practice and procedure of rounding employee time” and that some staff were “systematically unpaid and/or underpaid” for hours worked during their employment.
The class action lawsuit includes Brown, who was employed at Bi-Rite from August 2019 to March 2023, and other hourly-paid and non-exempt employees who worked at the grocery chain dating four years before the lawsuit file date. The plaintiff is seeking a trial by jury as well as all compensation owed.