A national collective/class action has been filed in New York against The Eastman Kodak Company. The action is brought on behalf of all current and former technical support specialists or engineers, customer or technical support staff or repair and/or service staff from all Kodak operations, who since May 1998, were not paid proper statutory overtime for all hours worked beyond 40 per week. The action is brought under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act as well as New York and other state labor laws and seeks back pay, statutory and liquidated damages as well as declaratory and injunctive relief. As a collective action under federal law, all potential claimants are required to "opt-in" to the action in order to be considered part of the class. The employees have requested that the court issue notice to all potential class members. The state law claims are brought as standard class action claims with no requirement to "opt-in".

According to employees, Eastman Kodak has engaged in a willful and intentional course of action to defraud them of proper overtime compensation. The employees claim that Eastman Kodak frequently requires them to work well in excess of 40 hours per week. However, according to employees, the company has no provisions in place to properly compensate employees for overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 per week. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act as well as state labor laws, all "non-exempt" employees are entitled to a minimum of time and a half for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week. "Non-exempt" employees are generally those that work on an hourly basis and do not have managerial or executive responsibility. The employees claim that they are "non-exempt" and therefore entitled to receive overtime compensation for all hours worked beyond 40 per week. The employees also claim that because Eastman Kodak's refusal to pay overtime was willful and intentional, they are entitled to an equal amount of liquidated damages.