RTX $19.9 million Wage and Hour Settlement

Nathaniel Morgan v. Rohr Inc. et al

Nathaniel Morgan, a former employee of Rohr Inc., originally filed the lawsuit in 2019 in state court, which was later moved to federal court. Morgan worked as a non-exempt Operations Specialist in the shipping and receiving departments of the aerospace manufacturing company based in Chula Vista from 2014 to approximately December 2016.

Plaintiffs Michael Bevan and Antonee Harris, both union members, later joined his class action, and all alleged that Rohr Inc. engaged in illegal practices and policies by:

• failing to provide meal and rest breaks
• failing to compensate employees for all meal breaks and rest breaks that were not
• provided
• failing to pay minimum and overtime wages
• failing to provide accurate itemized statements for pay periods
• failing to properly compensate employees for necessary expenditures

The above practices are in violation of the California Labor Code and the applicable IWC Wage Order, and the Business and Professions Code which prohibits unfair business.

The lawsuit underwent significant litigation, including depositions of at least 30 witnesses, numerous rounds of discovery, extensive employment data analysis and document production. It was slated for a June 2024 trial but the parties resolved the complaint in
settlement discussions and Federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel granted preliminary approval, deeming $19.9 million fair and reasonable, particularly taking into account the risks and cost of ongoing litigation.

Timekeeping Issue

According to the lawsuit, Rohr’s Riverside and Chula Vista facilities used centralized timekeeping and payroll departments responsible for processing employees’ timekeeping and payroll information, and for programming the timekeeping and payroll systems that employees used. All non-exempt Rohr employees in California, including both unionized and nonunionized employees, used the AutoTime timekeeping system to record their time.

From the end of March, 2015 to October 13, 2019, they used AutoTime 6, and then starting on October 14, 2019 used AutoTime 7. However, while the AutoTime timekeeping system was consistent across the two facilities and was used by all nonexempt employees during the Class Period, the specific practices for timekeeping and payroll varied, depending on whether the employee is a union member, and which facility the employee worked in, and then were nonexempt employees at Rohr required to clock in and out of work?

The Defendants

Rohr Inc. is a part of Collins Aerospace, a division of RTX Corporation (formerly United Technologies Corporation before it merged with Raytheon). According to court documents, Rohr is a wholly-owned division of UTC Aerospace Systems. RTX is familiar with wage and hour violations and employment lawsuits. In late 2024, it agreed to settle for $34 million another class action lawsuit filed by engineers claiming that the company, along with other tech firms, engaged in unlawful no-poach agreements, which restricted employees job mobility. The engineers accused RTX of participating in a scheme to limit recruitment between companies, suppressing wages and job opportunities, and age discrimination.

The Case: Nathaniel Morgan v. Rohr Inc. et al. Case No.: 3:20-cv-00574 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.