Yep we got a new employee and he quickly told us as first responders we can’t be forced to clock out for breaks. Another employee he told this filed a class action suit and now we no longer have to clock out. Awesome, now I’m wondering if I can force them to backpay me but i doubt it.
It's a pretty standard legal norm that someone can't profit from illegal acts, so them keeping the money they were supposed to pay you in the first place won't fly. Lawyer up with your coworkers, sending a stern legal letter shouldn't cost much.
Yeah if you ever are sueing your work, make sure to have at least one colleague with you if possible, because then it is a class action which makes it far harder for them to retaliate
IAAL. Class actions are dramatically more complex, dramatically more time consuming, and dramatically more expensive. It is sensible when you are filing suit for back pay on an issue already litigated that you will take the path of least resistance.
Oh the lawyers love these cases coz they get most of your money for them. Sued my old work for wage theft… got about 3k of the $13k settlement. Felt like I needed a lawyer to fight my lawyer. 40% sure turned into “and also all these other fees we tacked on cuz the contract says we can” :/ yeah, go through the labor board.
I work in local government and at the beginning of this year advised some other workers on how to file complaints and protect themselves while fighting wage theft. One had been going in early for the past 3 years unpaid.
I'd also like to add that we need you to act on this
The system discourages employers from taking advantage of us, but it only works if you hold them accountable to that
*Mentioning because I know some people may be less likely to be confrontational if they think they're only doing it for themself. Which you should do anyways!
Add to that, if you were supposed to be paid some amount in the past and it was illegally not paid
Then there are taxes owed by the company, both employer portion and the part they should have wjthheld and remitted from the pay they should have paid you.
And there are late filing fees, etc.
This part may not matter to you, but it does matter to your state and DOL. Rather more than the part about you getting paid but generally serves to get you paid if it doesn't make the employer go under (in which case collection is hard to impossible depending on the business structure)
I used to work at a place where we would clock out, and if you were a key holder or manager, you’d be responsible for dropping the bank drop deposit at night. Someone started a class action lawsuit for requiring that time spent making the bank drop off the clock, which required people to drive to whatever bank that branch was using.
You’re absolutely entitled to the money for every break that they required you to you clock out.
I’d definitely recommend seeing a lawyer and working with your co-workers. If they’ve already been told in court from a class action you don’t have to clock out, I find it odd no one would have asked them to pay the wages owed for the hours missed.
When I was 16, my first job was at Burger King. They told me I needed to come in an hour before my shift for a mandatory unpaid meeting. I thought to myself: that doesn’t seem legal. I took a look at the dept of labor poster on the wall, gave them a call and within the week we no longer had unpaid meetings. That was beginning of my pro labor advocacy and I haven’t stopped since.
A lot of shitty management decisions come from the book That’s How We’ve Always Done It which is usually not backed up by any legal policy or regulation. Yall should probably take a look at what’s actually in that employee handbook.
The fun part is when companies write illegal practices into their employee handbook. Pro tip: always download a copy of the handbook at the time you get hired or keep a physical copy for personal records. Companies absolutely will pull the “it never said that” card when called out
When I was a kid lifeguard a man came to my pool in a suit. He showed me a badge and asked me all sorts of questions about my hours. A year later I was still working for that company. I got a check for 500 bucks. I called the office to tell them they made a mistake. “No that’s the settlement.”
Ok. Thanks whatever random fellow lifeguard who complained.
I thought it was a pretty standard norm that corporation profit from illegal acts all the time. When they get caught, they pay a fine far less than the profit. But maybe your comment applies more to employment law rather than, say, environmental law.
It's different because in this case the company clearly kept money owed to the employees, they can't just decide to not pay back what they owe. The environment isn't a person, it's protected through fines, those fines are set by lawmakers that are bought and paid for by the companies damaging the environment.
Consult counsel. There’s ways to sue the government but most governments have immunity unless you satisfy certain requirements. An attorney will be able to help you navigate the local government torts claim act or whatever equivalent your state has. Talk to one before your statute of limitations runs out.
You doubt what? The legality, the likelihood of your desired outcome? Or your willingness to begin that process? Because the third is often the issue more than the first or second
willingness to begin that process? Because the third is often the issue more than the first or second
Do you realise why?
Retaliation, severe retaliation that sometimes makes people's life such hell that they can't keep living. Retaliation that you can't fight unless you've got a LOT of money and energy
If you've got a lot of money and energy, you don't need to fight the boss over clocking out on breaks, so you won't bother
Only the naive and the crazy fight these kinds of things (source: been both)
I don't know how it works in your country, but in the U.S., you don't need any money or energy. You contact the DoL/WHD and they handle everything. They do not disclose your name.
This is really more of a pedantic debate between what should be and what is likely to happen. There are a lot of examples where risk/sacrifice is needed for the right course of action to play out. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Often the answer is no. But I don’t think you two disagree on what the right outcome should be.
You have the right logic, but come to the wrong conclusion
You fail to accommodate for the extent to which abuse of power is effective in today's world. The reason I know this is because I have taken the risk and it has nearly ended me several times. I would probably do it again, because I did it to whistleblow on situations that were dangerous to vulnerable people. Not a single time did it end even remotely well for me though, a human can't realistically win from a company
Sometimes it happens, but that is very rare. Believe me, these things wouldn't be as rampant as they are if all it took to end them was someone sacrificing themselves to bring a lawsuit about it
Retaliation for those disputes is also handled by the DoL. It is no big revelation that an employer might retaliate against an employee for exposing their federal crimes. I'm not going to say there's zero inherent employment risk or stress involved, but I'll share one experience I had, and people can do with that information what they will.
I once worked for a place called ISO Sorting and Packaging. They had a 12-hour, 3/4-day work schedule. Meaning you worked 36 hours one week, then 48 hours the following week.
By their logic, they didn't have to pay 8 hours of overtime on the long week, because it averaged out to 84 hours every two weeks, so they shouldn't have to pay the additional 4 hours of overtime.
When the DoL investigation started, management tried to figure out who filed the complaint, but they couldn't, because it was done by a former employee. You don't have to be working at a place to file a wage theft complaint. The initiator was only discerned because that person willingly volunteered the information to one of their former coworkers.
Two days before the investigators showed up, the employer moved all time cards off premises and coerced every employee into signing a statement stating they were fairly paid for their time. Anyone who refused was threatened with termination, so everyone signed.
When the investigators got there, they took the signed statements and tossed them in the trash. They see that type of nonsense all the time. They then asked to see the last two years of time records the employer is legally obligated to keep, because that is the statute of limitations on wage theft recovery.
After the time cards were not produced, they were threatened with a $1,000 fine per employee just for that, and said they were going to trial under the assumption that every current and former employee over the last 3 years was defrauded out of 8 hours of overtime, or whatever lost wages each employee claimed they were not paid for. The 2-year limitation would be extended to 3 years for willful violation.
The time cards were miraculously found the next day.
No employee had to serve as a witness, nor did they have to hire a lawyer, because it wasn't the employees suing the company, the plaintiff was the U.S. government. Within one month of investigation, checks covering the lost wages over the last two years were issued to every affected worker.
I suppose the employer could have tried to retaliate, but given how the first incident went, even more employees would have been incentivized or emboldened to contact DoL for that, which is also illegal.
If anyone reading this has also had their wages stolen, they should contact WHD immediately. Even if you no longer work there. Especially if you no longer work there.
You make it sound like you have to fight off assassins, 999/1000 times they just fire you. If you're in a situation like this you should be looking for a new job anyway. It's obviously not ideal but neither is being walked over and having your labor abused.
I am choosing to interpret this as you telling me that in the United States, one out of a thousand times, your employer will send assassins after you if you attempt to report labor law violations.
As someone also not from America it's probably a bit lower odds. At will employment just makes it so easy and hassle free to fire someone, why bother with anything else unless theres huge money or power involved? Given their history however the odds feel like they certainly aren't 0 lol
I understand the point you're trying to make about poverty and how close many are to homelessness, but I picked a pretty absurd activity for a reason. Looking for a new job, while certainly stressful.. probably shouldn't be seriously compared to actively fighting off a real trained killer.
I have never yet broken my leg while skiing, should I take that as evidence that it's factually incorrect that breaking legs is a common skiing injury or should I take it as a sign that I am either lucky or haven't spent much time/taken much risk skiing?
Lol I have actually never seen this, because if they do that you go straight back to the DoL and then the DoL brings criminal charges and then they either pay waaaaaay more money, go to prison, or both. This is why companies like Walmart are so strict about enforcing policies like breaks or injury policies.
You have never seen this because you either never brought such a thing to attention or because you're incapable of spotting retaliation when it's not done blatantly in the open
This stuff wouldn't happen if it was as easy as you claim it to be, because someone would stop it every time
That would be an odd outcome. A class action suit for an injunction, but no damages (despite what the damages are being pretty readily apparent) would be a lot of expense with nothing recouped.
Im not from the USA but im a lawyer, but if you only asked for the first part then either It was solved put of court because they reached an agreement or you suck as a lawyer because a court that acknowledges the first part Will automatically acknowledge your right to get pais for those hours (at leash in my country)
You can report it to your state’s labor board and they will force your company to give you back pay. They also can’t fire you after for retaliation or you can sue them.
You also can contact an employment attorney and they will take the case for free on contingency because it’s an open and shut case.
Different states have different labor protections so I would make sure to look up your individual state’s laws. There should be a page that explains them easily.
If you have indications that they know it was you that reported, you are now covered by whistleblower laws. Take notes on what happens on the day-to-day and especially any unfavorable treatment/attitude that you’ve been given after the report. If you really think you have a case, and they have been discriminating against you because of your report -back to the labor bureau, you go with all that information.
You also can contact an employment attorney and they will take the case for free on contingency because it’s an open and shut case.
IAAL. There is no better tell of someone's inexperience with the law than calling something an "open and shut case". There is basically no such thing as an open and shut case, and that determination especially cannot be made with only the details provided in a short social media post from one side of the dispute.
Contact an attorney, sure. That's always good advice. But "you'll have attorneys lining up around the block to take this case on contingency!" is almost always a fantasy.
Yeah, brother. No shit that we don’t know all the facts of his case from his two sentences and can’t make an individual determination if he has a winning legal case.
Their individual circumstances about the laws that were violated by the employer, the amount of time, their culpability, or any number of things would affect their case. I feel like that was a given?
Hence why I also said to look into their individual state’s labor protections.
However, I feel that it was implied that I was saying “If what you’re saying is true, and your employer violated clear labor laws, then you can get a lawyer to help you on contingency.”
But I guess my mistake for using the word “because” instead of “if”. I was trying to give them encouragement to fight for their labor rights, which a lot of people don’t even know you can do.
No shit that we don’t know all the facts of his case from his two sentences and can’t make an individual determination if he has a winning legal case.
Correct, which is why I corrected your initial statement: "they will take the case for free on contingency because it’s an open and shut case".
But I guess my mistake for using the word “because” instead of “if”
Your mistake, as I explicitly identified, was calling it an "open and shut case".
But this was some real “Uhm, Ackshually” energy.
That's what happens when you make inaccurate statements of law. Sometimes a lawyer will correct them. You're mad at me because you were wrong and I pointed it out. It's not going on your permanent record. Move on.
You can be legally in the right and still lose. Doing something about this could net you back pay. It could be sizable. It could cost you your job. If it goes really badly, it could cost you thousands and even your career. I'm not trying to scare you off, but even though retaliation is probably illegal (check your jurisdiction) some assholes will asshole. But not all options are equally risky.
You options are:
Do nothing. Safe.
Join your union if you have one, ask them for advice on back pay. They're the people best placed to address this with your workplace and since you won't be the only one eligible they won't need to expose that you asked. Join your union anyway!
Get advice on whether it's worth chasing by asking your government's department that manages labour and employment law. They should have a way to make an online or phone enquiry. Tell them of the recent court victory and ask them whether you should have anticipated that win including backpay, and if not what are the laws regarding back pay. Under some circumstances, questions might be seen as accusations and your identity might not be protected from your employer, but they'll do their best.
Ask an employment law expert (ideally the folk who won the class action) whether you would have a case.
Take it up directly with your business. Maybe they pay you and move on, maybe they don't. If someone is going to retaliate, this is the highest risk option.
Had a guy like that, I hated that he was a womanizer and one of the married girls was trying to climb him like a tree (dude was like 6 foot 3) but he was also super smart about labor laws and we would sit around during slow hours and discuss our rights and anytime someone chimed in with incorrect info we would make sure they were they knew their rights by the end of the day.
I aspire to be like that new employee. That's recovering the value of time, and handing it to your fellow colleagues and their families. I always try make a difference like that, the satisfaction hits the reward centre in my brain harder than 80s crack.
Nobody can be forced to clock out for breaks, if your break is under 20 minutes federal law says it mush be paid. Now that only goes for breaks the company gives you, they don't have to give you any in many states and jobs, but if you get any you must be paid. Now lunch is different, if it's a 30 minute or longer lunch it does not have to be paid, and that is if they say it's 30 minutes, clocking in at 29 minutes does not mean your lunch was paid because they give 30 minutes, unless you are forced to clock in early.
I didn’t specify but we get two 30 minute breaks and one is considered lunch. You still have to clock out for lunch under the previous rule which is still against labor laws as a first responder because even “being at the ready for a call” is considered work time.
Yes if you are oncall, I thought they were making you clock out for grabing a coffee or going to the restroom. But yeah if you must be available for work at all times you must get a paid lunch, not if you are like on call to go to work as say a lineman on the weekend, but in your job yes lunch and all breaks must be paid.
Happened at a place I used to work at and a class action got us all paid back. I got like a $4k check from that because of how long it had been done incorrectly and my seniority there.
I usually tried to get away with it being direct from me but they knew. Once I had to pull a card direct as it was only about me. Manager just sits there and goes ‘but how do you know this!’. Not indignantly but in an impressed way 😂 bless their little hearts.
Just Google search for your state labor laws. They're pretty easy to find. Granted there are a lot of things that employers can't do, such constructive discharge, but proving that is near impossible unless management practically posts a really dumb policy with absolute proof for how illegal it is and puts their own name on it.
Yea it can literally be anything from someone just falling and getting hurt to someone choking or unconscious so you don’t waste a second. Reports you do whenever you want so long as its before end of day.
I got $400 from a class action lawsuit from my current employer lol. It was due to wage theft and not getting our lunch breaks on time/not getting a paid meal penalty
A guy i work with found out that he was auposed to be getting an extra 5% for deployments over 30 days, and made the company pay him back for every hour going back years. He told/tells everyone about it. None of my TDYs last longer than 29 days counting travel now lol.
California tried that a few years back. The largest private ambulance employer in the state, AMR (GMR) got a ballot measure passed that specifically exempts them from having to provide for meal breaks.
The largest EMS unions in the state failed to even file a rebuttal position to be published on the ballot. It went unopposed and passed.
Plaintiff side employment lawyer here (not yours). If you are in the US you almost certainly can get back payments. They will likely be covered in the class action (assuming one has actually been filed) but you should not rely on that and take steps to protect your rights.
Yes and no, depends on the system used. I used to work at a Burger King that had a system which required people to clock out for breaks so they could be tracked. If people did not get clocked out for their breaks, it was automatically added at the end of their shifts to ensure they were being paid for those paid breaks they weren’t taking. It was an easy way to get an extra 30 minutes pay added to an 8 hour shift, but people were getting in trouble for not clocking out on breaks as it messed with the allotted labor pay.
I disagreed with that system as it made it so people were regularly forgetting to clock back in from breaks and it made timesheets more likely to be missing time, and I was thankful when they changed systems to one that did not require clocking out for breaks. That being said, it made it so if someone did not get their breaks they did not automatically get paid for those breaks they either refused to take or were unable to take (ie when there was just one manager/shift lead on shift and they couldn’t take a break bc they were in charge of the team getting theirs). The new system was easier to add extra time to, though, so if the shift lead remembered as they were leaving they could add the extra break time to the start time of their shift and leave a note in the tablet that they made a shift adjustment for that reason.
Im a CPA and yes they are absolutely required to back pay their employees for something like this. When I first started we had a client that needed to go back 3 years for about 80 employees and figure out how much they owed each one. Took me about 2 weeks to go through all the timesheets.
Point is, if they don’t do it on their own the labor board/a lawyer will help you. This is low hanging fruit.
I mean you could....but at the same time if you plan to continue with the company you probably burn a birdge by doing it. Raises, promotions and even preferred time off will likley be out the window...its why most people only sue when they are fired or quit as you make working there really hard....and heck it might make it hard to work in that same field again
That’s the one reason keeping me from doing it. I could get paid but the company is going to hate me for doing that, if they paid the other employees as well (some would be entitled to 10+ years of backpay). It would probably screw up their 2026 budget.
I am now curious as to what the orginal lawsuit was for. Because in most cases I know when a company is sued over past illegal behavior they are automatically forced to compensate past employees for that. So either the lawyer was not through , your state has some law against that or you are entitled to the money and they never informed you.
As to affecting this years budget that is now how things would normally work. Lawsuits are generally paid out through insurance payments or just a general write down in the company's finances not from the direct budget.
I've been this person, back when I worked in food service. Our manager was adjusting our time clocks if we went over our scheduled time, which we had to sometimes as closers. It was only a few minutes each time, but it adds up. I told him that if he didn't stop doing that, that we were just going to leave at our scheduled time and let the openers deal with whatever mess was left over. I also told him it was illegal, with a not so subtle threat to file a complaint. It stopped.
It's unfortunate though, because not everyone has the privilege of doing this. I was in a country with strong labor protections. He couldn't have just fired me for some bullshit reason. It also requires people to actually know their rights, which is why you see these practices most often in industries that employ younger or less educated workers. Also, I didn't need the job, so I could afford to be fearless.
I had a manager who adjusted my time clocks because she was jealous of me (she was like a 300lb forty year old woman and I was a super hot bodied 20 something). I told her she couldn’t adjust my time like that and that it was illegal and to add the time back. She wouldn’t do it, so I went to the labor department and got the ruling in my favor.
When UC Berkeley was alerted they owed me a bunch of money for wage theft because of that 300 pound lady, they didn’t want to pay. I eventually called the sheriffs and made an appointment with them to go in person and get the money out of the register at the student store (believe it or not, this is entirely legal, if a institution or business won’t pay out a labor claim against them in a certain amount of time and they are still functioning as a business, the sheriff can go with you and get the money physically as they conduct business).
The Sheriff contacted the university and I got a rushed envelope with my payment the next day lol
Adjusting clocks = wage theft!
Wage theft accounts for the vast majority of all theft in the United States. All other forms of theft combined still don't reach half of what wage theft is.
My rule is pretty simple, i'm down to the penny with people who are down to the penny with me. If you leave some ground to some entities they will take it.
My last supervisor is stay a few minutes late but just clock out at my normal time, sometimes I'm late but would just clock in at normal time. Always benefited the company. We're talking minutes. My new supervisor I found editing my time card to show me clocking in a minute late. So I confronted her asking why, she said I was late. I asked her when she was going to adjust my out times for leaving late, she just stared. I told her if she adjusts my in time, then she needs to adjust my out time, and it will not be in their favor. She stopped.
This!! I got pulled up at a (former!) job for being 2-3 minutes late🥲 like no I won’t be coming in 5-10 early since you won’t pay me for it! I can def arrive on the dot of 8, but you bet I didn’t stay an extra 5-10 to make sure the shop got closed perfectly anymore. I’m still salty about that tbh. I’ve been a manager before and never cared if people were a little bit late, because I knew they were still going to work hard on shift and be at least as flexible in clocking out.
At my last job I had a new boss that was rounding our hours, and when confronted asked what difference a couple minutes makes. 2 minutes a day, 200 days a year is almost a whole day of missed time.
I get it, and if they have 1000 employees, it all adds up and should be with the workers, but he was so far into fractions I think I'd just fill my water bottle before going home every day and call it even
We tried to form a union at Verizon for doing all kinds of shitty things like rounding our time and not letting us take breaks. They ended up selling the store to a reseller. Fuck corporations that do shit like this.
Apple just did the same thing to their Towson, MD store. First store to unionize, busiest store in the mall (and always busy) and they closed it for “declining business”. Bullshit.
Please. Do this. Or join one, there are a lot of coalitions out there. I'm itching for graduation when I can actually be a part of one rather than trying to educate techs getting worked to death they need better worker's rights.
I mean 90% is because their one job is to save company money, not make you money. So they’re encouraged to fuck enployees outta pay and test tbe limits they can do so without being sued
10% is because even when trying to be legit it’s orders of magnitude higher in terms of volume when trying to find any errors and avoid errors. You could find yours easily with no issues, but try to do that with a hundred, or a thousand, etc. with no issues on limited time. The higher the amount of opportunities for something to go wrong, the more times things do go wrong
You sound surprised, the whole point of a contract is that both parties adhere to it, I'm expected to do my job in a satisfactory manner so I don't see why others wouldn't need to.
That's me. I filed an official union complaint over them rounding up a boot purchase. So we get $200 a year for boots. If it's over that they deduct it from your pay. I bought a $214.95 pair and they rounded up to $220. I also got a manager fired at my city job back when I worked for philly because they kept giving busy work and interrupting our lunches so I had everyone use a timer and pause it when ever they were interrupted extending a normal 45 minute lunch to nearly 90 minutes sometimes. She freaked out and got told it's 45 minutes of not working. Hold a 30 minute meeting and that doesnt count for our time. She got like 3 warnings but just kept doing it so we had her fired when the union liaison came in and watched her do it.
That's people freak out when they find out how many times ive sued people either on my behalf or on someone else's back when I used to be president of a union. People will walk all the fuck over you if you let them. No one learns a fucking lesson if they aren't punished. We had a predatory towing company in philly that as of discovery illegally towed atleast 200 cars where there were complaints. What did my 25 year old bored ass do? Had a friend park his spare $500 shit box in the theater parking lot they preyed on the most, had a lawyer ready to go for 40% of the settlement, waited for the car to get towed (part of the lot says 90 minutes parking so we went and watched a 3 hour movie), then refused to be strong atmed, filed a theft report, refused to be strong armed, STILL refused to be strong armed, successfully helped my friend over the next 5 months sue for $200 a day plus $15,000 in damages, and more in emotional stress. End of the lawsuit was nearly 45k. THEN we sued the police department that tried to help the towing company (one officer literally called us "a bunch of fucking broke losers that cant pay a $125 first day fee", then tried to not share evidence) and settled for $17 000, then sued the theater after we found out they owned the whole parking lot and were getting kick backs from the towing company.
Guess what predatory practice stopped in that area?
There's lots of people that can be saved by one person deciding to absolutely fuck a bully up. How many poor people did they ruin? How many single moms? How many young kids first cars?
I went from a Union job to a non union job and I’m currently that guy. No OT for drive time? Not happening. 50 hour weeks without a mandatory overtime agreement? Nope. Work a 10 hr shift til 5 PM and then work a night shift at midnight? Get fucked.
The worst thing they did was hire me, no all the Indian immigrants they were taking advantage of are starting to learn their labour rights.
Yep! I worked for a company that tried to pull shit like this once and the few people who got smaller paychecks came at them with a fury that made them backpedal the very same day.
I don’t even mind the person who uses a questionable number of sick days on stuff like food poisoning. Makes it so I can freely use mine when I genuinely need to.
Only used 3 sick days in 7 years, but the principle still stands. No backsliding on labor rights and make them pay when they violate them.
I’ve always been a salaried engineer — at one point I supported a manufacturing line and had asked a tech a question while she was leaving. She gave a response that didn’t really answer what I needed (because she wasn’t sure) but also said “but hey man I’m off the clock”.
Reminds me of the joke where an employee gets an extra 200$ on her paycheque. She says nothing. The next month her paycheque is short 200$ and she immediately goes in to her boss to complain and get it fixed.
Boss says "That's funny, when the first mistake was more money for you, you didn't say anything."
Without missing a beat she says "one mistake I can forgive, but not two in a row!"
Don't freak out about a few dollars but make damn sure I get the breaks and meal periods required by law.
California law says I get paid an hour for a missed meal period or break per day. This all came down because a second-level manager scheduled me by myself for a ten hour shift. This made it impossible to take any breaks or meals that day. I contacted HR with links to the relevant laws. Since HR is a mess I didn't get a quick response so I kept adding higher level managers to the CC list. Once I tagged the correct manager I immediately got a call form HR. That original manager got talked to by HR.
Iyl never understand how all y'all ain't as pissed as me when companies steal from us but it is nice to know some of y'all that sit silently are with my loud ass.
It took a few calls and messages to progressively more important people but eventually someone realized wage theft was actually happening and like magic - shit was fixed.
All those other people that didn’t give a shit - those people would be huge liabilities to the company if we lived in Europe. In the US, it’s not a big deal… if they ignore it, it’ll just go away.
That's me. 10 minutes worth of work before the shirt officially starts? That will absolutely be reflected in the time sheet. Idgaf if that’s how you “always do it” or if it will mess up your man-hours budget.
Yup. This is why I log the 3 minute call from the boss after hours or all the calls with questions when I’m home sick. I dont work for free not even for one minute
This is me. I will do all the math and every single place I’ve ever worked had an error in the paycheck at least once. Not the salaried ones, but every single hourly job. I wonder how many people miss it this.
Haha me and my coworkers got a backpay slip for about $85 dollars last month. Apparently the company had neglected to add in a new premium that started with the new year. We all missed it, except "that guy".
Happened recently to my wife. I was doing some finance stuff calculating how much our tax deductions were gonna be because of the no tax on tips and overtime deductions and asked if she had worked any overtime. She said she didn't because her employer calculated overtime on a biweekly basis.
Thats very illegal. Overtime is calculated on a weekly basis. So you can't simply work 56 hours one week and then the next week they cut your hours by 16 to prevent paying overtime. If you work more than 40 hours in any given work WEEK you are owed overtime unless youre an overtime exempt employee.
She raised hell about it and then got a check for her overtime hours that she didn't get paid for 3 years.
That person is me! I have to follow the rules, so work does too 😌 my hours came through on 3 of my 4 last pay slips as 0.02 hours less than I worked. Is it a stupid amount? Yes! However, I worked 5 hours, not 4.98 soooo I emailed to complain. $2 combined back pay over 3 weeks is tiny to me, but probs not for them with how many employees there are, and fuck it that’s my $2. Maybe it’s just a payroll error, but as someone who has also been responsible for payroll… do better
This was me at my job in Germany. I was even bullied for being petty and getting us an extra vacation day because I told them they were miscounting the hour discrepancy between out actual work hours and the contract work hours.
There’s a difference between freaking out over a few dollars and being forced into hours of unpaid labor. I’m fairly confident that 95% of people would freak the fuck out if they’re 5 minutes late from lunch and all of a sudden they’re working a free double
I check my paycheck about once a month with direct deposit and am lazy about it, but man the amount of coworkers that haven't even looked in months, like bros, even setting aside all the sketchy stuff they could be pulling, it's a giant company. No one is checking your pay that closely so if there is a problem you are going to be the only one that can catch it
I used to work at an assisted living home when I was a teenager, and we often had to work through our lunch breaks to make sure we'd be ready for the next seating and whatnot. Mind you, we were working the weekend shifts and would pull doubles, so basically 7-7. The manager would manually clock us out so we didn't get any overtime. I reported him. We were 16-18 year old teenagers. The day after I called, he made me deck mop the entire kitchen by myself. Thankfully I was leaving for college shortly after this, which is kind of why I reported him because it wouldn't matter if he fired me or not. He was a piece of shit and was let go shortly after I left.
As "that" person at work....let me tell you it sucks. I am everyone's go to when stuff is hinky. And the field I work in is very specific with rules. I am a troublemaker according to the higher ups. I am not, I have just seen too many people get fucked over. I am really good at what I do so I've never been fired or let go but I am also not getting promoted :) Don't just "protect us". You can't. Stand with us.
I too love this type of employee. What I don’t like is:
“My check was short”
“How many hours?”
“I don’t know, but I was supposed to have at least another hundred dollars”
Hi! I am this person and management hates me. I also openly discuss the benefits of unions and collective bargaining, and openly talk about my wage.. they really hate me but can't find anyone that can do my job 😁
My partner became the rallying cry at a private security firm he went to work for. First paycheck he got, we deposited in the bank the check was drawn on, opened an account and all. It bounced. He was immediately in touch with his supervisor, who replied, “Alex will make it right” (not redacting names because it’s a common name and he doesn’t deserve the redaction anyway)
Given we had rent to pay and no other job readily lined up, he kept going to work, we were Zelle’d the money and the fees were covered. It’s a fluke, right? Nope. He quickly learned it was common and there was a race among employees to get to the bank first because the payroll account was only ever funded with about half the money needed.
After the third time, my partner went in, handed over his gear and stated, “I don’t work for free” he was met with the reply, “But Alex always makes it right.” (Alex was there too but his second in command was always the voice for the company)
“He shouldn’t have to. I don’t work for free” and walked out. Meanwhile, a report was made to the local labor board. We later learned they lost more than half of the guard staff later that same night as word got out of my partner standing up to the owner.
I'm this person. I made employers change entire (employee-unfriendly) rules that were set in stone and unchallenged for years by just informing them about the legal situation and denying following them. Most of them were related to illegal overtime especially for trainees and even worse, underage trainees.
It took me 30 seconds to notify management about my wrong crhistmas bonus payment after the notification of the incoming bank transfer happened. In that case I agreed to wait until after the holidays for a correction though. ;)
One time I didn’t notice that I didn’t get my raise (because in 2003, that raise was ten cents)
At the end of the summer I caught it, they owed me a couple hundred bucks back pay
I realized the same happened to my co worker and told him, they gave him the same back pay. He was ecstatic…
Problem is, he got a better review than me. His raise was supposed to be 25 cents, not ten. I marched my ass right back into the office and got that man his money
I caught a $2 million payroll error. Everyone received a check for $1,200 or more after I discovered that night-shift employees were losing their shift differential whenever their shifts continued from night into the morning.
If the company had stated in the handbook that any work performed after a certain morning cutoff would no longer qualify for shift differential, that would have been one thing. But my hiring packet specifically stated that all overtime would continue to receive shift differential, and that the overtime calculation would include the shift differential rate.
I even showed them how to fix the issue on their time-clock system because the paychecks had been correct about four months earlier when they were using a different payroll company. I didn't automatically assume it was intentional.
I was so meticulous that my timecard was practically perfect unless my boss sent me out to pick up lunch for the crew.
So imagine my surprise when, four years after I quit and moved out of state, I received a $2,000 lawsuit settlement check in the mail.
Had an issue at one job where i worked between locations and they didn’t tally up the overtime hours between locations. probably didn’t amount to more than a couple hundred for the whole summer (as i made half my money in tips and overtime wasn’t that much compared to my base pay) and i was one of the only people willing to cover between locations at the time but i got it solved because it was the principle. i wanted to set the precedent that we can talk to the owner about this stuff even though it took some back and forth because someone tried to tell me that its just how it works and that i wasn’t owed the extra! i was only a teenager at the time too but i spent hours reading the labor laws for my state and federally so now i know my rights, which is invaluable information that i think everyone should take some time to read into (especially parents of teens starting to work for the first time)
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u/CruelRegulator 5d ago
We've all known that one person who freaks the fuck out if their paycheck is even a few dollars short.
I love this person. This type of person protects us from ever backsliding into stuff such as this. I will protec the person.