Jerry Maatman Quoted in The Chicago Tribune
07/09/2006
The article ("More workers suing to get overtime pay: Fuzzy regulations on who's eligible leave some frustrated") in the July 9 issue of The Chicago Tribune reports that since 2000 the number of wage-related cases filed in federal courts has doubled, and most involve overtime claims. Some experts say is the nation's fastest-growing legal battlefront between workers and companies. On the state level, Illinois may soon have one of the toughest laws aimed at companies that have failed to pay overtime. Lawyers predict a potential spike in overtime pay cases in Illinois in the wake of the law change. These new debates over questions of who is a boss and who is an employee, or when does work begin, have drawn the attention of lawyers to an area of law that had largely been ignored. At the same time, the government stepped up enforcement of wage laws, leading to a spike in the collection of back wages, which are mostly from overtime pay cases. In turn, such intervention also has attracted more attention and lawsuits. "All employers are thinking about doing audits of their wage and hour practices," said Chicago attorney Gerald Maatman Jr., whose firm, Seyfarth Shaw, noted in a recent report that wage and hour class-action suits last year outpaced job discrimination filings nationally. The same trend is reflected in Cook County court cases, Maatman said. "I'm seeing it on a daily basis, and it's a new development we didn't see a year ago." California's reform of its labor laws in 2003 is credited by Maatman with triggering an "uptick" in overtime cases there and elsewhere. The changes made it easier for workers to directly sue companies, expanded the number of workers covered and boosted the penalties against employers. As the size of the settlements grew in California and elsewhere, and workers' attorneys won cases, "success begot success. I would call it the copycat phenomenon," Maatman said.
