Contract analysis

1. My name is Karen Fong. I am over the age of eighteen years and am competent to testify to the matters set forth in this declaration. I make this declaration based upon my personal knowledge and upon my review of business records of Aurelius Media Americas Inc. ("AMA") that are maintained in the ordinary course of business under my supervision and control. If called as a witness, I could and would competently testi

2. AMA is a Delaware corporation qualified to do business in the State of California, with its principal office located at 8500 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1400, West Hollywood, California 90069. AMA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aurelius Global Media Group PLC, a public limited company incorporated in England and Wales under Companies House Registration Number 08412667. AMA employs approximately 3,200 employees in the

3. AMA's payroll processor and electronic timekeeping system provider is NovaPay Solutions Inc., a payroll and human capital management company located at 2200 Powell Street, Suite 600, Emeryville, California 94608. NovaPay Solutions has served as AMA's payroll processor since January 1, 2019. The specific timekeeping system utilized by AMA is the NovaPay Solutions "TimeTrack Pro" system, which is an electronic punch

4. The TimeTrack Pro system functions as follows with respect to daily shift recording and meal period deductions. Non-exempt employees clock in and clock out for each shift by scanning a proximity badge or entering individual login credentials at a TimeTrack Pro terminal located at each AMA facility. The system records the exact clock-in time and clock-out time for each shift to the nearest minute. The system then c

5. In addition to the auto-deduction feature described above, the TimeTrack Pro system includes an optional feature called the "Missed Meal Attestation" feature. This feature is designed to allow employees to report, at the point of clocking out, that they missed or were unable to take a compliant thirty-minute, duty-free meal period during their shift. The feature operates as follows: at the time clock terminal, whe

6. Despite the Missed Meal Attestation feature being part of the implementation checklist, the feature was not activated at all seven of AMA's California facilities. Based on my review of the TimeTrack Pro system configuration records, the activation status of the Missed Meal Attestation feature at each of AMA's seven California facilities was as follows: (a) Facilities where the Missed Meal Attestation feature was A

7. In connection with this litigation, I have reviewed and compiled data from the TimeTrack Pro system regarding the usage of the Missed Meal Attestation feature at the four facilities where the feature was activated during the class period. The data I reviewed covers the period from January 1, 2019 through October 31, 2023, which corresponds to the class period as modified during settlement discussions between the p

8. With respect to payroll processing of meal period premiums, the process operates as follows. When the Missed Meal Attestation feature is triggered by an employee at the time clock terminal, the TimeTrack Pro system generates a payroll flag that is transmitted to my payroll team as part of the regular bi-weekly payroll cycle data feed. My team reviews the flagged shifts during payroll processing to confirm that the

9. With respect to rest period tracking, the TimeTrack Pro system does not record rest periods. The system does not capture or store any data reflecting the start time, end time, duration, or occurrence of rest periods taken by non-exempt employees during their shifts. This is consistent with standard practice in the payroll industry. Under California law, rest periods are treated as paid time and are not required to

10. With respect to overtime and off-the-clock time, the TimeTrack Pro system calculates overtime automatically based on the recorded clock-in and clock-out times for each employee, consistent with California overtime rules. Specifically, the system applies the following overtime calculations: compensation at one and one-half times (1.5×) the employee's regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of eight hours in

11. In connection with this litigation, AMA has produced timekeeping and payroll data from the TimeTrack Pro system to Plaintiffs through NovaPay Solutions. The total AMA document production in this matter has been approximately 147,832 documents, comprising approximately 1.2 million pages. This production includes the TimeTrack Pro data extracts containing the timekeeping and payroll data that I have described in th

12. The payroll and timekeeping data produced in this litigation reflect significant variation in shift lengths, overtime frequency, and meal period timing across AMA's seven California facilities and fourteen show units. These variations are inherent in the nature of AMA's operations, which span a range of production types with differing scheduling demands. By way of example, and based on my review of the TimeTrack

13. Based on my personal knowledge and my review of AMA's payroll and timekeeping records, I offer the following conclusions: (a) The auto-deduction mechanism in the TimeTrack Pro system was applied uniformly across all seven AMA California facilities as a timekeeping system feature. It functioned as an automated payroll processing tool and was not itself a substantive meal period policy dictating whether, when, or h