The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. Section 201, et seq., governs collective actions involving federal claims for failure to pay minimum wage and overtime.  The FLSA’s collective action mechanism was enacted by Congress in 1938.  Despite this, collective actions are generally less well known than class actions under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23.  

Collective actions empower employees to band together to seek compensation for small underpayments that would be impractical to recover in an individual lawsuit.  Typical claims include treating employees as independent contractors, misclassifying employees entitled to overtime as “exempt” from overtime, and wrongfully applying the “tip credit” in situations where tipped employees are entitled to be paid the full minimum wage.