Cebu Meridian Foods is suing wearable-device maker Gala Systems after the distributor says its Fitwell Arc fitness bands marked working warehouse staff as asleep and helped trigger ₱7.8 million (about €120,000) in withheld night-shift premiums. The company says 623 workers were affected in a single month, turning a staff wellness scheme into a payroll dispute now before a Makati commercial court.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, seeks ₱48 million (about €740,000) in compensation and alleges that a software update connected sleep alerts to the distributor’s shift-planning portal without adequate warning. Cebu Meridian says it found the problem after employees questioned missing premiums for work between 22:00 and 06:00. The company has not said how many workers have since been repaid.
When a rest alert clocks out
The bands were given to 3,400 employees at 11 depots, according to the filing. Their companion app offered activity charts, reminders and a “recovery” notification; the company alleges that tapping the alert marked a worker as resting in the scheduling portal. Staff handling light tasks with little arm movement were also flagged automatically, it says.
Cebu Meridian operations director Samuel Phillips said the firm bought the devices as a voluntary wellness benefit and did not intend them to measure attendance. “We were buying step counts and sleep advice. We did not buy a machine that could quietly decide whether a person had worked,” he said. He said the company was checking payroll records and would correct any confirmed shortfalls.
We were buying sleep advice, not a machine that could quietly decide whether a person had worked.
Samuel Phillips, operations director
Workers demand a manual check
Carla Haro, who sorts orders at a Mandaue depot, said a supervisor told her the band showed a rest period during a shift when she had been scanning cartons. She said her night premium was short by ₱2,160 that month. “The band was supposed to help us sleep better after work. Then it started telling the office when I was asleep,” she said.
The filing says the portal logged 8,460 hours as rest time over 27 days. Cebu Meridian argues that the alerts lowered its reported night-shift hours and says it has switched off the integration. The company did not provide a breakdown of the 623 affected workers’ individual losses, and it has not explained why payroll checks failed to catch the entries earlier.
Manila payroll-systems consultant Enija Reizniece said wrist trackers can mistake repetitive or low-motion work for inactivity, but should not decide pay without a separate, verified time record. Philippine employers generally owe a night-shift differential for work between 22:00 and 06:00. “A wellness score is not a time clock,” she said, adding that workers should be able to contest automated records.
Gala Systems denied that its bands could alter wages on their own. In a written reply, the company said the scheduling connection was configured by Cebu Meridian and that its app displayed a confirmation before sending a rest status. It said it had offered technical assistance and would contest the claim that an update changed the setting without warning.
Cebu Meridian says it has asked the court to require the device maker to preserve app records while the case proceeds. The first hearing is scheduled for 19 October. The distributor says it will review affected pay slips, but has not announced a repayment timetable; workers have been told to submit disputed shifts to depot supervisors for manual review.
