Novo Nordisk faces overtime lawsuit

A lawsuit was recently filed against pharmaceutical corporation Novo Nordisk alleging that the company had violated time and attendance regulations set by the state of California, as well as the Fair Labor Standards Act.

According to the class action complaint, Novo Nordisk failed to compensate its pharmaceutical sales representatives for overtime hours worked. The company maintains that the workers met the outside salesperson exemption to not be paid overtime, however the plaintiffs counter that their overtime hours were not spent making actual sales. Rather, they were promoting prescription drugs to physicians who could not directly purchase the medicine from the reps.

Under California state law, employers must compensate non-exempt employees for overtime whenever the employees work more than eight hours in a single day or 40 hours in one week.

Other pharmaceutical companies being sued in the state over the same violation include Schering-Plough and Merck.

Earlier this month, California-based Farmers Insurance agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in overtime back wages to nearly 3,500 of its customer service call centers in six states.