A former McDonald’s employee is suing the owners of the franchise she worked at because she says she was forced to use a prepaid debit card that charged her fees to access her wages. The McDonald’s Corp. is not named in the lawsuit.
From the Citizen’s Voice:
Filed in Luzerne County Court, the suit accused the Muellers and their limited partnership of violating the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Act and unlawfully boosting profits with the payroll card “scheme.”
The suit seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages on behalf of employees and asks a judge to award punitive damages against the company for its “ill-gotten gains contrary to justice, equity, good conscience and Pennsylvania law.”
The lawsuit shows the complications of state laws and payroll cards. State laws vary in the way that they approach payroll cards, and though Pennsylvania has said payroll cards can be used, it is not clear whether employees can be compelled to use the cards. An underlying principle of most state payroll laws is that employers cannot force workers to accept wages in a way that costs them money. It remains to be seen whether the Pennsylvania law and the structure of the card program are in conflict in this manner. The lawyers filing the lawsuit seek to make it a class-action suit.
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