My niece just started working for a company yesterday. She is working in a convenient store that also sells gas. She has almost no job experience. She says her boss does not pay time and a half for over
40 hours.I am assuming that if she says anything, the boss will just quit telling her to come in. What is the best way to address this problem?
Met,
The US Dept of Labor may be reached at 866 487-9243.
Good luck, Dave M.
Sounds like it's required for the job. I've had jobs were time-and-a-half wasn't paid (only straight time) but mostly overtime was paid at zero times. ;-)
Take immaculate records. Keep all pay stubs. Contact the state labor relations board after she leaves the job? Sue for back pay? This is highly jurisdiction dependant.
Well, if she only started yesterday she can't have come close to having even worked 40 hrs, what more over. "Don't cry until you've been hurt."
If this really comes to pass and is repetitive and clearly deliberate, USDOL has enforcement offices in Hotlanta and probably other major cities in the State or she can contact the GA DOL directly.
Tell her to get the hell out of that job.
If she stays, she will almost certainly be faced with an armed robbery situation at some point.
Working in a convenience store in the US is one of the riskiest jobs around.
Metspitzer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
The best way is to inform yourself as to whether or not there is an actual legal violation occurring here. You need to be very careful to ascertain that your niece is actually legally entitled to overtime pay before confronting her employer and getting her into a possibly embarrassing or damaging situation.
Using Google, I was able to determine that wages are federally regulated.
How overtime-work hours are determined:
Who does or does not qualify for time-and-a-half, and when:
Tegger wrote in news:XnsA197CC0294397tegger@208.90.168.18:
Forgot to post the link to the Georgia Dept. of Labor's site:
After working over 40 hours, a person is worn out and dont work as hard, so they should get HALF the pay, not "time and a half". :)
Seriously, jobs like that dont pay real well anyhow and it's easy to find another person to replace one who is fired. Just how many hours over 40 is she working? If it's only a few, I'd say just let her keep her job. Jobs are hard to find in most places these days and with no experience, even harder. Otherwise someone will need to contact whatever labor association that state has, and file a grievience. But that will likely get her fired. If shes expected to work 60 or 70 hours, I'd do something, but if its 43 hours, forget it. That likely amounts to less than $20 anyhow. Some job is better than no job.
that's because she won't ever get over time. these places hire enough people to make it so no one ever gets over time. this also cuts back on having to provide insurance. there are exceptions. contact your state's wage and hour division and ask them if the store is required to pay or not.
Before I retired, I was an engineer which the government classified as "professional management".... There is an exemption for such people to be paid a fixed salary, and any additional hours that might be required get ZERO overtime pay..... This is the present law...
It didn't bother me a bit. I got great raises every year, often a year end bonus, and, most of the time only slight overtime was required except for exceptional circumstances when I was expected to do whatever was required to meet the needs of the company...
The distinction is this.... : Some employees try to work the minimum hours, take the maximum coffee breaks and sick leave, and go to a better job with minimum notice given as soon as another opportunity presents itself.
Other employees are working as if they are partners in the company, putting in whatever time is needed to get thru a crisis , and don't care about maximizing how much time they can get paid for without working but rather "how can my time be better used to benefit the company".
Which type of employee do you think keeps their jobs in a recession, or that the company tries to hang on to ???
It's different attitudes that people have.... MY attitude worked well for me, and I retired at 55 with no complaints.
If I could advise your niece, I would suggest that she set goals for herself, determine what she needed to do to achieve those goals, make a plan , and put up with occasional crap that might come along without complaining.... It looks to me like she considers herself, now, to be a "worker bee" instead of a "supervisor bee"..... Unless she changes that approach, she will be at the bottom of the ladder all her life...
We all start out as worker bees. It's our attitude that makes the difference.
I bet working for free does help you keep your job.
And that law does not apply to clerk in convenience stores. She is not qualified to be exempt.
While I can appreciate your suggestions under some circumstances, the law must still be obeyed. There is a difference between waiting an extra 10 minutes at a shift change or working 10 hour over the 40 and not getting the legal wage to be paid. That is allowing all employees to be abused. The prick needs to be hung out by the labor board.
I've been an exempt employee for over four decades (and worked many a
45 to 65 hour week), but that does not mean you sit back and let the company break the rules and abuse employees. Honest and legitimate business follow the law.Save the motivational speech for a real job with a potential career.
Get that first pay stub and send a copy to the labor board.
Don't let her work nights in a convenience store. Ever. Or days, unless they have no stickups in the area. She has to see how it plays out. Maybe the store policy is simply "Nobody works over 40 hours because we don't want to pay time and a half." That can play out differently too. The boss might demand that certain things be done before you clock out, but you have to clock out at 8 hours. If you "forget" to clock out and work an extra hour to meet the demands he set up, it's not counted as overtime, or even straight time, because he told you that policy is an 8 hour day. Some people actually put up with this because they need that job. Others just walk away. There are also certain "exceptions" to get around the "+40 hour week equals overtime" with swing shifters. So you might work 48 hours one week and 32 hours the next week and get no overtime. So you have to check the laws in detail. Just tell her not to ask the boss these questions unless she feels comfortable enough to walk if she doesn't like his answers.
On 4/3/2013 6:02 PM, snipped-for-privacy@attt.bizz wrote: ...
It's part of federal fair labor act as far as minimum reqm'ts--many states including GA have incorporated parallel state statutes as well or some additional reqm'ts but if actually a covered position then the 1.5X part is pretty much universal.
I've long been suspicous of sites like ehow which claim to know everything about everything. But it might be true.
Is this expected to be a permanent job, or just until she finds a better job or starts school in September?
She shoudln't do anything public for a few weeks. Until the first supervisor written work review, if possible, if they have such things. So that there is a record that she's a good employee. But she should keep careful records, contemporaneous records (that is, recorded when something happens, like when she gets to work and when she leaves work.)
When I was a contractor, I used to keep such records because we only billed the client in full hours afaict. Most people bille 8 8 8 8 8, but I stayed late sometimes, I got in late sometimes, I talked to my mother on the phone for long periods (after 4:30 but then I went back to work) so I kept track of my actual hours worked, and kept track of the discrepancy between that and and 7, 8, 9 hours per day. I once over time fell 3 hours behind how much I was supposed to work, but otoh, once I was 3 or 4 hours ahead. When I finally left, I had billd just what I worked, no more, no less. (I also kept track of personal phone calls and goofing off and if it totaled more than a 15 minute coffee break in the morning and one in the afternnon, I deducted that from the amount I billed for. They never asked about my hours. I'm not sure if that's because I got the work done well or just because they trusted me.
Some states have a wage and hour, or employment something division of the state government. after her first positive review, I would talk to them. Oh, and after a couple weeks in which she works more than
40 hours. Or maybe I would call anonymously now. Maybe gas stations are an exception to the rule? Is it a deal breaker if they're not going to pay her. Even if the state instructs them not to fire her, it may end up being very unpleasant working there.Has she even worked more than 40 hours in a week yet? Maybe this will never come up.
When I worked at a ski resort, part of my job was to keep track of employee hours in the department. Once you got your 40 hours in, you're done. You go home. "We don't pay overtime" usually means you'll never see it.
I thought she would be armed? Guns cure everything people here believe.
Good advice.
Actually , I was never fired or "laid off" for my entire
35 year career, even tho I was working in the defense industry where typically, when a contract was filled, engineers were shed. I saw many many co-workers get pink slips -- many smarter and with more experience than myself -- and the only reason I could see was that the company wanted to "hang on" to people that it knew could be depended on..... It might not work everywhere, but it sure as hell worked at Bendix, Texas Instruments, and Raytheon....And "working for free" didn't happen. That's why bonuses and "paid time off" were created. I have no complaints.
Kudos to both your niece and yourself for being smart enough to know that she has legal rights in the workplace. A good many employers count on the reality that most workers have very little familiarity with labor laws, which makes them easy to exploit.
Any employer that chooses to violate the law is putting itself into a risky position. This isn't your niece's choice, it is her employer's. All it takes is a phone call or visit to the Department of Labor and the employer could face the DoL conducting a payroll audit and interviewing current and former employees to determine if any labor laws have been violated. If they do conclude that there's been a violation, the company could end up being fined and required to compensate employees (current and former) for their unpaid time, plus interest.
Your niece could have a candid conversation with her supervisor where she points out that by trying to save a few bucks, they're exposing themselves to potentially significant liability and expense. Or she could bring it up in a more circuitous fashion. You know - casually relating a story about a 'friend' of hers, and what happened where that friend of hers worked when the DoL was informed that they were not paying overtime.
This actually happened at a place I worked at when I was younger. A former employee contacted the state DoL just to ask whether the company could legally terminate him for the reason it gave him when they let him go (reason given: to replace him with a new worker at a lower wage). His conversation with the DoL provided them with enough information about probable legal violations to justify investigating the firm. The DoL's investigation included a payroll audit going back several years and interviews of current and many former employees. The employer was found to have violated several laws, including the overtime and minimum wage laws, fined thousands of dollars, and had to pay all of its current employees and a large number of former employees back pay plus interest.
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