Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is in hot water with about 5,000 of its call center employees. The class is suing the world's second-largest computer maker, alleging it underpaid them. Any Dell call center employee in the U.S. who worked for the company from February 8, 2004 to the present can join the class.

The lawsuit stems from claims of not being paid for overtime or training for two employees who originally brought the case almost 18 months ago. Since that time, more than 80 employees have joined the suit and a federal judge gave it class action this week to cover all Dell's call center employees in the U.S. It's hard to gauge what material effect this case will have to Dell's bottom line, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it mentioned on upcoming financial documents since it's now a federal class action.

This is not good news for Dell, which was already under the gun in another suit for alleged deceptive sales practices and fraud. The company, which has seen good sales figures lately and seems to be on the right track to not losing more market share to larger competitor Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ), will have a rough time with this suit, I suspect. If the current and former employees have documented, unpaid (or underpaid) hours that were witnessed by others and have paychecks to back up those claims, Dell may need to be ready to pay out.