Packaging Corp of America Faces Wage Lawsuit

The class-action complaint, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, goes beyond off-the-clock work, alleging that Packaging Corporation of America failed to provide legally required meal and rest periods. The suit claims that for shifts lasting between six and eight hours, employees were sometimes denied both their first and second 10-minute rest breaks. Additionally, the lawsuit accuses the company of underpaying sick wages. It alleges that when calculating sick pay, the company used a lower base rate of pay instead of the legally required regular rate of pay, which should have included non-discretionary incentive wages that employees had earned. The case was filed by the employment law firm Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP, which has offices in several California cities, including San Francisco and Sacramento. The firm specializes in representing employees in cases involving wage violations, wrongful termination, and other unfair business practices. Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) is a major player in the packaging industry and is the fourth-largest producer of containerboard and corrugated packaging products in the United States. The company operates numerous facilities throughout California, including plants in Los Angeles, City of Industry, and San Bernardino, making the potential scope of the class-action significant. This is not the company's only recent legal issue in the state. In 2022, PCA paid $385,000 to settle a racial harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of two Black employees at its McClellan, California plant. Nationally, PCA has also faced scrutiny. In 2022, the company paid a $2.5 million civil penalty to resolve Clean Air Act violations stemming from a 2017 fatal explosion at its Louisiana mill. A jury later awarded $91.8 million in damages to nine survivors of that explosion in a separate civil suit.