My employer’s time clock rolls my actual time back by 5 to 10 minutes almost everyday. It never is in my favor. Is this legal?
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My employer’s time clock rolls my actual time back by 5 to 10 minutes almost everyday. It never is in my favor. Is this legal?
I’m a bus driver with two morning runs and two afternoon runs. I have an exact clock in time, but do not ever have an exact clock out time as I get gas, clean bus, or have problems on run like construction holdups or parents not at bus stops which prevents exact end times daily. My employer’s time clock rolls my time back every shift, almost everyday by 5 to 10 minutes. It is NEVER in my favor. Is this legal and who do I call to force them to stop this habit?
Asked on October 20, 2017 under Employment Labor Law, Pennsylvania
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
No, it is not legal. Employer have to keep accurate time records and pay employees for all time worked. Rounding is not necessarily illegal--e.g. rounding to nearest tenth of an hour (nearest 6 minutes)--but has to be done in a fair fashion: for example, if rounding to nearest 10th of an hour, working 1 - 3 minutes extra rounds down mathematically, but working 3 minutes and 1 second to 5 minutes 59 seconds rounds up. The rounding must be done so sometimes it's to the employee's benefit; if it is always to the employer's benefit, it is being done improperly.
If you lose 5 - 10 minutes per day, you lose around 42 minutes (on average) per week, or 2/3 of an hour of pay per week. You could contact the state department of labor to file a complaint about how your employer keeps time.
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