AT&T Inc workers are suing the telephone operator for an estimated $1 billion in overtime payments in two class action lawsuits that say it is wrongly depriving about 5,000 employees of overtime pay.

The lawsuits say that a company-wide policy exempting first-level managers from overtime pay was a violation of federal labor laws and California state laws, according to Sanford Wittels & Heisler, the law firm filing the case.

AT&T, which employs about 290,000 people and is expected to generate $123 billion in revenue this year, declined to comment on the cases directly but said that it complies with all federal and state wage laws.

One of the cases filed in Atlanta in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia says first-level managers are the lowest in a seven-tier management hierarchy at AT&T and have only minimal supervisory roles.
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