SHERMAN – A Pizza Hut employee in Pennsylvania has pursued legal action against the restaurant chain, alleging it is stifling pay and preventing professional growth opportunities.
Allegheny County, Pa., resident Kristine Ion filed a 30-page class action complaint in the Sherman Division of the Eastern District of Texas on Nov. 3.
The antitrust lawsuit explains that Pizza Hut, which is headquartered in Plano, has a no-solicitation and no-hiring agreement with its franchisees, to which the latter agreed not to recruit or hire each other’s management employees or Pizza Hut management employees.
Pizza Hut has employed Ion, a shift manager, since 2011. She alleges the company promised to pay her $9.00 an hour, but she was only paid $7.25.
The suit further claims that she was never promoted despite the respondent’s numerous promises of doing so during the six years it employed her.
According to the original petition, the agreement “reflects a naked restraint of competition and a per se violation of the antitrust laws.”
“Because of the ‘no-solicit’ and ‘no-hire’ agreement, the plaintiff and the putative class have suffered injury in the form of reduced wages and worsened working conditions,” the suit says.
“Suppressed wages due to employers’ agreement not to compete with each other is injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent.”
A jury trial is requested.
Attorney Bruce W. Steckler of the law firm Steckler Gresham Cochran PLLC in Dallas serves as the lead counsel for Ion and the class members.
Sherman Division of the Eastern District of Texas Case No. 4:17-CV-0788