How legal is this?

Our company had been having financial issues like many. But our company is a nation wide corporation.. make a difference..

None the less, our senior manager made it very very very clear that we are NOT TO HAVE OVERTIME! Despite some employees working and not claiming it.. ( our work can not always be done in a 9-5 kind of day.

One of my employees came to me and stated.. "someone has changed my payroll. I had 3 hours of overtime last week and not it's gone" I reveiwwed this and sure enough it was gone. The employee said.. "XXXXXXX has been sued in the past and lost over this.. you think they would learn from that!" It was true our company lost millioins due to inapropriae tampering of records!

I took my employee to the Senior Manager who all of sudden stated "over time is allowed with approval".. So with that being said and with the employee in presence I made an announcement of this at our next meeting.

Back Peddling? Untruthful? Corrupt?

danny14551

I do not know all the facts here, but if it was posted that employees are not allowed to work over their hours then it could be legal. Many states allow employers to post such signs as a way to cut down on employees purposely going over there scheduled hours or shift switching with out management approval. IF this is the case the courts would look at her 3 hours a gift, because she knew she was not suppose to do it and did it anyway.

Judy

The company is required to pay for overtime worked, and supervisors can't legally even allow employees to "volunteer" to work overtime and not be paid for it.

If the employee makes an issue of not being paid for the past overtime and reports it to legal authorities, he'll win - he's right.

golden1

overtime with approval is legal,but the employee with the 3 hours of overtime should have been paid. federal law says that hourly employees who work over 40 hours are to be paid time and a half for all hours worked over 4o hour work week

leysarob

Employees MUST be paid for all hours worked. Employers cannot change time records to avoid paying overtime.

However, employees can be fired for working unauthorized overtime. The employee can file for lost wages, but most likely that employee will end up without a job.

john c

Can you be accused of all these things? Yes, you can and it will probably happen soon. That is, if you did not clarify who has the authority to do this in your announcement. Also, you didn't post whether it needed to be pre-approved, or if that approval must be in writing. Nothing has really changed, except he legitimized the denial of that specific request for overtime payment.

I won't go into the details of "Offer and Acceptance" as it pertains to contract law, but there is a good possibility this same scenario will repeat itself. The company still has an opportunity to claim verbal approval or approval at the wrong level was not authorized. After that, they can claim it was only authorized as "comp time". As Darrell Royal, who perfected the Wishbone offense, said: "Three things can happen when you pass the ball and two of them are bad." Regardless of what may have been inferred from the Manager's remark, even he may not be able to controvert the company policy you opened with.

Be careful not to let an inductive announcement from a single conversation get misinterpreted. Still, plowed ground can be very difficult to walk through. Good Luck.

strebpink

First it depends what state your in. Second, an non-excempt employee (hourly) needs to get paid for any hours worked OT or not. Also, ask Payroll Department for Time sheet with edits. managment gets paid to control OT,and tis is not the employee fault. however, I would not get involved unless your the supervisor/ manager. if you are then you might start looking for a new job because Senior managment pay middle managment to conduct these issues.. good luck!

Pyar

if you are paid hourly .. you legally get paid for all the time you work . If you are on salary it's a different story.

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