Rep slaps King with the latest overtime suit

If at first you don't succeed at winning overtime pay, try again. At least that's the strategy of a former King Pharmaceuticals sales rep, who's suing the company for denying overtime for him and other salespeople. The new suit, reported by Pharmalot, follows a June court decision against a group of reps seeking overtime pay from King subsidiary Alpharma.

Plaintiff David Heldman--like other companies' sales reps who have challenged their status as exempt from overtime pay--alleges that the company wielded so much control over his and other reps' daily activities that they could hardly be qualified as management employees, rather than hourly workers. Heldman claims that King not only scripted sales calls, but determined what healthcare providers to visit each day, and even set up a route for those visits to minimize travel time.

Sales rep claims for overtime have mounted over the last several years, with drugmakers such as Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott Laboratories ordered to hand over back overtime pay. Other companies, such as AstraZeneca, won their overtime fights. Obviously, King has won before, too.

- see the Pharmalot post