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Judge conditionally certifies overtime action brought by Atlanta law firm of Barrett & Farahany LLP ATLANTA - The Atlanta law firm of Barrett & Farahany LLP today announced that an Atlanta judge has granted conditional certification in a class action brought against global financial institution Bank of America. The lawsuit, which represents three current and former Bank of America employees, was filed in Atlanta federal court by Barrett & Farahany in September 2008. The lawsuit accuses Bank of America of uniformly and systematically violating the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA ) for failing to pay employees back wages owed for overtime hours. In October 2007, Bank of America reclassified a portion of its employees from overtime ineligible to overtime eligible during a review of the company's positions. Reclassified employees were notified that they would begin receiving overtime wages for time worked beyond 40 hours per week. In the same notice, Bank of America informed these employees they would not receive back wages for any past overtime worked. If an employee's job and responsibilities were the same before and after being 'reclassified' then they were eligible for overtime before the reclassification. Therefore, they have rights to back wages for past overtime earned, explained Amanda A. Farahany, attorney Barrett & Farahany LLP. While there has been a trend in financial institutions to reclassify employees and then pay appropriate or partial back wages for overtime, this is the first lawsuit against a company we know of where they actually instructed employees that they would not receive any back wages for overtime.