The claimant began working as a part-time sales associate for the respondent health shop.  After being promoted to supervisor, he became responsible for opening the store in the morning and closing the store at night if the store manager was absent.

He claimed that in carrying out these tasks he had accumulated over two hundred hours in overtime after his contracted shifts were due to finish, for which he was not paid.  The respondent contended that it was ‘custom and practice’ in the retail sector for managers not to be paid for time spent closing the shop and that the whole process takes only a few minutes.

It was not in dispute that the Respondent operated an overtime scheme