Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10749

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Colias M.
Former drug reps sue Abbott
Chicago Business 2007 Jun 28
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=25504

Full text:

Former drug representatives for Abbott Laboratories Inc. sued the company Thursday in federal court, alleging the North Chicago-based pharmaceutical firm violated labor laws by denying them pay for working overtime.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, follows a string of suits filed late last year by drug reps against several large pharmaceutical companies. A similar complaint also was filed Thursday against New York-based Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.

The suit contends that Abbott and other big drug makers classify drug reps as exempt under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which means those workers aren’t entitled overtime payments.

Sales forces can be exempt from overtime under federal labor laws. But attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that drug reps often work 60 or 70 hours a week and should not be classified as sales people.

“They actually don’t sell anything,” Los Angeles attorney Charles Joseph, who filed the suit on behalf of two former Abbott reps, said in a statement. “Rather, they are tasked to influence the prescribing behaviors of doctors.”

The suit asks the court to order Abbott to start paying overtime to drug reps and seeks compensation to current and former employees who were denied overtime pay.

An Abbott spokesman didn’t immediately return a phone message. A spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America declined to comment.

Similar suits were filed last year against Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc., Eli Lilly & Co. and other large drug companies on behalf of tens of thousands of drug reps.