Wholesale food and beverage manufacturers often use “Direct Store Delivery” or DSD to get their product from the back room to the shelves of their customers. Many DSD manufacturers classify their DSD staff as “salespeople” and pay them a salary for all hours worked – so the pay is the same if the employees work 40, 60 or 80 hours. These employers treat their workers as not entitled to overtime under the “Outside Sales Exemption” of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company has no incentive to have employees work fewer hours and as a result, these employees work tremendously long hours for a set amount of pay. Getman, Sweeney & Dunn believes that many DSD workers are primarily merchandisers and thus misclassified and entitled to overtime because they do not actually “sell” anything within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Getman, Sweeney & Dunn has litigated this issue against Kellogg’s for RSRs and TMs, who we believe are entitled to overtime premium pay. Contact Getman, Sweeney & Dunn if you worked in-store in a DSD position and were not paid an overtime premium for hours worked over forty in a week.