By Dave
Collins
Associated
Press
Published
December 28, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Susan Schaefer LaRose quit her
sales job in May after 18 years with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and
Co., frustrated by long workweeks that frequently encroached on weekends
and vacations.
And then she sued.
Her lawsuit, part of a series of class-action
claims filed last month against nine major drug companies, seeks tens of
millions of dollars in back pay for the thousands of drug company
salespeople across the country.
"I was told when I started with Eli Lilly that I
was exempt from overtime," said Schaefer LaRose, a 50-year-old mother of
two from Chittenango, N.Y., about 17 miles east of Syracuse. "I figured
they were the large employer and I never thought to question it."
The lawsuits, filed in New York, California, New
Jersey and Connecticut, are the latest in a series of mass tort claims
seeking overtime pay from U.S. businesses in recent years. International
Business Machines Corp. last month agreed to pay $65 million to 32,000
technology workers who claimed their jobs were wrongly classified as
overtime-exempt.
The pharmaceutical company lawsuits seek overtime
wages dating back two to six years, under federal and state statutes of
limitations. Other companies affected are Boehringer Ingelheim
Pharmaceuticals Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson,
Amgen Inc., Hoffman-La Roche Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Bayer AG.
Some of the companies deny the allegations, while
others are reviewing the lawsuits before commenting.
Abby Baron, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, said her
company adheres to all labor laws. "We intend to defend our position
vigorously and we have the utmost confidence in the legal process," she
said.
Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins said the firm would
vigorously contest the lawsuit.
In the case that Schaefer LaRose is part of,
federal labor law allows outside sales forces to be exempt from overtime
pay in recognition of the unique abilities offered by a skilled sales
staff. Schaefer LaRose said she was able to draw on her skills, using
her own discretion in how she pitched the company's products to doctors,
when she started with Lilly in 1988.
But within a decade drug companies began carefully
scripting sales pitches for fear of competitors' lawsuits or scrutiny by
the Federal Food and Drug Administration.
"They no longer had that freedom for what the
exemption was designed," said New York attorney Charles Joseph, who
brought one of the lawsuits. "The job has changed, and it has changed
for the worse."
Schaefer LaRose said her 45-hour workweeks began
lengthening as cell phones and e-mail became more prevalent. Two
co-workers were chastised by a district manager last spring, she said,
for not checking their e-mails during vacations. She also said Lilly
does not allow sales reps to log on to the company's computer system
between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., prime hours for calling doctors, which forces
reps to do reports on nights and weekends.
"Those things were supposed to simplify our lives.
They didn't," Schaefer LaRose said.
Lilly spokesman Phil Belt said Lilly would not
respond to Schaefer LaRose's allegations because of the pending lawsuit.
But he said the company values its employees and compensates them in
accordance with all laws and regulations.
Dana Higgs, another plaintiff, who worked for
Pfizer for more than 20 years, added that the increasingly long
workweeks have had an impact on families, especially single mothers who
have been forced to make last-minute child-care arrangements and pay
caregivers when called to work overtime.
"What they required of us was unfair," said Higgs,
who lives in Pennsylvania. "My boss told me that I needed to be engaged
in business 24/7."
Not all sales reps support the lawsuits.
Anthony DeMeis, a co-founder of the Pharmaceutical
Representative Society of New York, said it was unfortunate that some
people are looking for ways to get more money from their employers.
