PacBell Agrees to Settle Overtime Claims

Pacific Bell agreed to pay $27.8 million to settle overtime claims by more than 600 current and former employees who filed suit against the local phone company in state court. The San Francisco-based California unit of SBC Communications Inc. agreed to settle the claims by sales support managers seeking overtime for the period June 1993 to December 1995. The class-action suit claimed the managers didn’t spend enough time supervising other employees in order to be exempt from receiving overtime. The settlement, first reported Thursday in the Oakland Tribune, was approved by San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia on May 20. A spokesman for Pacific Bell refused to comment. An attorney for the plaintiffs said the terms of the settlement prevented him from commenting.