Bank of America sued over not paying workers for PC boot up time in proposed class action lawsuit

Bank of America is facing a proposed class and collective action lawsuit that accuses the company of failing to pay hundreds of hourly workers for time spent booting their computers, logging in, and launching required software before officially starting their shifts.

The complaint, filed by former employee Tava Martin, focuses on a routine familiar to many in the modern workplace: unlocking encrypted drives, signing in through multi-factor authentication, connecting to a VPN, and launching business-critical applications. According to the filing, these tasks could take up to 30 minutes each day and were required before employees could access the company’s timekeeping system to clock in.

This could take even longer if technical problems occurred, and during unpaid lunch breaks, many systems would automatically disconnect, forcing employees to repeat parts of this protracted login process, adding approximately three to five minutes of unpaid time on most days. At the end of each shift, workers had to log out of all programs and securely close down their workstations, adding another two to three minutes.

The lawsuit leans on long-standing guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor, which in 2008 clarified that such computer start-up tasks could be considered compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) if it was integral to the employees' activities. Specifically, the agency treated booting and preparing workstations as part of a worker’s “first principal activity” if those tasks are necessary to perform the job. In this case, the plaintiff argues that launching the company’s digital workspace was a prerequisite for fulfilling the analyst role and that Bank of America should have compensated that time.

Martin’s legal team is seeking back pay and damages for a class they estimate includes “hundreds” of similarly situated business analysts and support staff who were required to use BofA’s remote access tools before logging work hours. The plaintiffs are reportedly pursuing both class and collective action status, which would allow them to represent a broader group of affected employees across states.

Recent court rulings on similar cases have varied. In some cases, pre-login time has been found non-compensable, especially when workers were able to perform other duties while their computers booted. Others have sided with employees where specific boot-up sequences were clearly tied to core job functions and could not be bypassed.

At the time of writing, Bank of America has not responded publicly to the filing. The case, Martin v. Bank of America, was filed in federal court on October 23 and remains at the preliminary stage.

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