Have You Been Working “Off The Clock”?
If you were employed and you believe that you have not been paid all of the overtime pay, hourly wages, salary and other benefits that you believe you are owed by your employer, tell us your story!
-Report Unpaid Overtime & Wages-
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that all covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the minimum wage for all hours worked in their employ and that covered, nonexempt employees who work more than 40 hours in the workweek (7 consecutive 24-hour periods or 168 consecutive hours) receive at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for the overtime hours (hours worked over 40 in a workweek).
What Does Employ Mean?
The FLSA defines the term “employ” to include the words “suffer or permit to work”. Suffer or permit to work means that if an employer requires or allows employees to work, the time spent is generally deemed to be hours worked.
What Is Working Off The Clock?
Time spent doing work not requested by the employer, but still allowed by the employer, is generally considered hours worked, since the employer knows or has reason to believe that the employees are continuing to work off the clock and the employer is benefiting from the work being done off the clock. This time is commonly referred to or known as “working off the clock.”
Common examples of working off the clock or hours worked under the FLSA (for which overtime pay is generally due) might include:
An employee who voluntarily continues to work at the end of regular working hours. An employee who needs to finish an assigned task, prepare reports, finish waiting on a customer or take care of a patient in an emergency. An employee who may take work home to complete in the evening or on weekends to meet a deadline. An employee who checks, reads and/or reviews work-related emails (whether on a handheld PDA or wireless telephone device or on a home computer, etc.), or listens to work-related voicemail messages while away from the office or workplace An employee who must correct mistakes in his or her work. The time must be treated as hours worked. The correction of errors, or “rework”, is hours worked, even when the employee voluntarily does the rework. An employee who waits to do work. Time which an employee is required to be at work or allowed to work for his or her employer is hours worked. A person hired to do nothing or to do nothing but wait for something to do or something to happen is still working. Employees subject to the FLSA must be paid for all the time spent in physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer of his business. An employee who spends time putting on or taking off (i.e., donning and doffing) protecting gear, clothing or uniforms (e.g., anti-static smocks, goggles, shoe strips, and hand strips) and waiting in line to have the gear, clothing or uniforms checked before they began their shifts.
Hours worked off the clock include all the time during which an employee is required or allowed to perform work for an employer, regardless of where the work is done, whether on the employer’s premises, at a designated work place, at home or at some other location.
It is the duty of management to exercise control over their employees and see that work is not performed off the clock if the employer does not want it to be performed. An employer cannot sit back and accept the benefits of an employee’s off the clock work without considering the time spent to be hours worked. Merely making a rule against such off the clock work is not enough. The employer has the power to enforce the off the clock rule and must make every effort to do so. Employees generally may not volunteer to perform work without the employer having to count the time as hours worked.
–Contact An Overtime Pay Class Action Lawyer–
If you were employed and you believe that you have not been paid all of the overtime pay, hourly wages, salary and other benefits that you believe you are due (or if you are just not sure and want to find out), contact an overtime pay class action lawyer:
-Report Unpaid Overtime & Wages-
You can also share your overtime pay and wage complaints, if any, with other off the clock workers and off the clock employees by leaving a public comment below.
Working Off The Clock Overtime Pay Related Tags:
overtime law, labor law, mandatory, employment, regulation, unpaid overtime, wage law, exemption, overtime calculation, how to calculate overtime, overtime calculator, wage and hour, employee right attorney, employee right in workplace, lawyer for employee right, employee legal right, employment lawyer, employment lawyers,layoff, laidoff, layoffs, laid-off, lay off, laid off, employment law, employment law lawyer, class action, class actions, lawsuit, lawsuits, suit, suits, case, cases, laws, firm, firms, lawsuite, lawsuites, attorney, attorneys, lawyer, lawyers, complaint, complaints, complain, complains, compliants
-Report Unpaid Overtime & Wages-
workinng at dominos pizza as a delivery driver i am clocked out by my employer and not allowed to clock myself out , i ask what time im being paid till since it is different every night, 2-3 times a week i am told i am clocked out 15 min to half an hour before i am done and expected to finish my work, even though the manager leaves and is clocked off himself
March 16th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
At our location, we are required to take the deposit to the bank after we have clocked out without any compensation for travel time or gas. We have been threatened with suspension and termination if we do not comply. I have already been written up once for not taking the deposit after closing.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 am
My employer expects me to work after I clock out to finish things we were to busy to get done during my shift. Also to come in early and work without clocking in so the person getting ready to leave can clock out on time. They expect all of us to do it. Some people don’t mind and they get mad at the one’s who don’t want to work for free.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Ive worked at my job for over 1 year now. For most of the time I worked 8 and 1/2 hours ever day but only recieved pay for 8. We were told that 1/2 hour taken out was our lunch break but when I tried to take one, I was told I cant. Since then we have changed to clocking out for lunch breaks. Now I am tol I get a 30 min lunch break every day. They tell me to clock out but I still work during the 30 mins and rarly get to go out and buy lunch.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:08 am
I constantly work off the clock. I am a non-exempt employee transitioning into a management position and feel “obligated” to give my best to the non-profit in which I work. I get there early, stay late, work through lunch and feel that my time should belong to me, and if I want to work–I should be able to work. My employer does have a policy of no overtime, but may enforce it upon me 10% of the time. The only drawback is that I haven’t worked there long enough to have seniority for a scheduled vacation–when I want to. I still am at their mercy there.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
I’m in training at a telemarketing company and was just told two days ago we now have to “memorize all scripts requested by Monday and if we did not know them by Wednesday, we’d be let go. We were told we needed to study over the weekend and know it. To me that is part of the job and the request to have this many pages memorized is ridiculous. Does this qualify as working off the clock. I have a newborn baby at home and this is a little much for me, but I need the job.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:22 am
I work at a childcare facility. Recently we have been told that we can take a lunch break, but we can not leave the premises. That’s fine. The thing that I wonder about is if it’s legal since we have to clock out for our lunch. Is it legal to make your employees stay on the premises for their lunch break if they are off of the clock?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I work retail and we are required to have bag and purse checks. Sometimes we have waited more than 30 minutes to have a manager check our bags and purses before we go home. Is this a legal procedure off the clock. Also, we have to check in our radios. We also do this off the clock by adding all the waiting time up, it takes employees 40 min. to leave.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:38 am
I have worked for a care home since august 2008. I am not happy with the worktime regulations. All staff have an hour or some 30 min lunch deducted and then told that they cannot leave the premesis. Nurses on the night shift cannot pass the keys they hold onto another member of staff as they are the senior members of staff therefore they cannot take a proper break. They are deducted this time and also they have to hand over at the start and end of a shift that they have been told that they will not get paid for. is this right it does not feel like it to me..
December 21st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
My company does not allow me to clock in before 8:00am, but makes me start at 7:55am evey day, to boot my PC, start applications, get work, files, etc. organized - so that I can start promptly at 8:00am. Similarly, the company forces me to clock out at 5:00pm, but does not allow me to shut my PC down, put files away for the evening, etc. until 5:00pm. Would this 7 minutes every day (35 minutes per week, 2.3 hours per month)be considered working off the clock?
December 26th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I work in distribution, most days I load my truck, for the next day, at the end of my shift, then I drive my truck home. My problem is, we carry a handheld device and we to clock in on the device to to declare we have started to head to our first stop of the day, but we can’t clock in (which is by phone)to start working until we reach our first stop of the day. For me that is an hour and a twenty minutes drive that I an not getting paid for. I have been doing my job to the best of my abilities. My employler wants us to rush through the day to get done but they are not accounting for weather or traffic conditions. I know I am working off the clock, what can I do about this?
January 5th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I have worked for my company for almost 5 yrs. and during that time have put in alot of off the clock time, because the hrs allowed us are not sufficient to properly do our jobs. It is no the kind of job you can just “leave” when it is time. I am sick and tired of this, but feel if I do not get the work done I will be fired. Help! What can I do? Talking to my supervisor does not work, they say no more hours will be given. I am working the fastest I can and still doing a good job.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I clock in 10-15 min early to prepare for my shift. My workplace edits my punch at my scheduled start time, At the end of my shift they do the
same thing, cutting the 5-10 minutes have already worked. Iam losing 15-25 minutes a day. Is this ethical ? legal ?
February 26th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Those of us who work the night shift are required to come to the plant on our free time for training. This goes on every week and we receive no pay for this. we are threatened with a ‘write-up’ if we fail to comply
April 18th, 2009 at 4:36 am
i work(ed) at Cotton Patch Cafe in Granbury, TX and if you get into touble for just not having a belt or something like that…you have to work off the clock for one-two hours on saturday mornings…i got fired for not coming to one of these while i was processing for the army! which my recruiter told me was violating another law! is any of this okay? can they really do this?
May 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I was forced to sign a contract or not take the job- stating that I will clock out at 6:30pm whether or not cleaning duties are done-they are never done. So I’ve been working 15-30 minutes to clean up and not getting paid for it-I make minimum wage. Who can can I talk to about this without loosing my job?
June 11th, 2009 at 6:34 am
i would like an answer to what marquetta said in question #7. the only difference is that i work in a health care facility. can my employee make us stay on the premisis for our lunch break if we are not getting paid for this break?
June 14th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I work at a YMCA in Ohio and am asked by my employer to clock out and have a meeting during my lunch hour which consists of talking about the program for which I work. There is no way this is right, but he hides it by saying me and the other directors are “hanging out.”
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm