Former Foxconn Employee Alleges Company Commits Wage Theft

Foxconn. Photo by Dave Reid.

A new lawsuit claims employees working for Foxconn at its Mount Pleasant facility were underpaid because the company routinely shaved time off timesheets.

The federal class action lawsuit was filed this week by Scotty Allen, a former employee of FII USA, Inc., or Foxconn Industrial Internet U.S.A. The lawsuit alleges Allen was fired because he complained to his bosses that the company was changing the “clock in” and “clock out” times for him and other employees.

For example, Allen said if he clocked in to work at 3:25 p.m., the time clock would automatically round up that time to 3:30 p.m. because the clock operates in 15-minute increments. The lawsuit claims by doing so, the company violated federal and state workers rights laws.

Similar lawsuits have been brought forward against other large companies in recent years.

Allen, who is represented by Brookfield based Walcheske & Luzi, LLC, said he complained to his manager on Jan. 19 that he wasn’t being properly compensated.

“Defendant terminated Plaintiff’s employment on or about January 30, 2023, because of his verbal complaints of Defendant’s unlawful practice of changing or altering his ‘clock in’ and/or ‘clock out’ times during the workday,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit doesn’t indicate what Allen and other employees do at the facility, but it does say they would put on “protective gear and other equipment, such as smocks and shoe-straps,” before their shifts. It also doesn’t indicate how many employees work at the facility.

FII USA, Inc. is located directly adjacent to the 100-foot-tall globe on the Foxconn campus. It’s not entirely clear what is done there, but its LinkedIn company page says the facility is used to create “technology solutions in 5G, IoT, and Industrial AI to aid businesses in transforming to the Industry 4.0 environment.”

Foxconn initially planned to invest $10 billion on a large flat-screen manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant and employ 13,000 people. Those plans never came to fruition, and a far smaller manufacturing facility now operates on the site.

The state reworked its contract with Foxconn in 2021, scaling it back from the original pact signed in 2017 by former Gov. Scott Walker. The original pact would have given nearly $3 billion in credits to the company, which was promising to hire 13,000 employees. The current agreement— reworked after Foxconn acknowledged it would not move forward on its original plans — offers up to $80 million for 1,454 jobs created by 2024.

Foxconn has recently said they have over 1,000 employees working in Wisconsin. The company qualified for state subsidies for its Mount Pleasant development last year, bringing the total amount it’s received from the state up to about $37.4 million.

Neither Foxconn nor Allen’s attorneys have responded to a request for comment.

Listen to the WPR report here.

Lawsuit from former Foxconn employee alleges company underpaid employees was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.