I am a salaried employee in Maryland and the company I currently work for is trying to rewrite their "pay" guidelines. They are trying to start a new policy that if you miss any of your eight hour day, even if it's only 30 minutes, that they will dock your pay or you will be required to use FOUR hours of your vacation leave to cover the missed time. We are on a bi-weekly pay schedule and if we happen to work 85 hours in that pay period, but miss 30 minutes on one day, they plan to dock the time (by FOUR hours) or deduct from accrued vacation leave. Is this, in any way, legal? I consistently work more than 40 hours per week and have to leave early occasionally. Are they legally allowed to deduct from my vacation leave if I have worked more than my required "weekly" hours?

Yes, this is legal. I do not necessarily agree with the policy, but vacation is not a benefit that is guaranteed or protected by law. The employer is not required to provide you with any vacation at all, paid or unpaid; it is up to the company policy how it is used and applied. As long as you receive your entire salary for any week in which you do any work at all (with limited exceptions) the law does not care which "bucket" it comes out of; regular wages, sick time, vacation time, personal, holiday, you name it. All Federal and state law cares about is that the dollars in your paycheck are not docked unless it is for a reason specifically allowed by law.

In addition, the US DOL has specifically taken the position that any issues regarding vacation time are a matter between the employee and the employer; the state of Maryland has no law that would override that.

They are really allowed to deduct vacation time when you have worked 40 hours or more for the week? And if I choose not to take "4 hours of vacation" leave to cover the 30 minutes I leave early, while still having 42 hours for the week ... they can then choose to dock me FOUR hours for 30 minutes? How is that legal?

Both are legal because no laws prohibit them.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the policy. I'm saying that there is nothing in the law that makes the policies illegal.

It is legal because there is no law that says they can not do this.

The way around it is to take a half day off if you know you need to leave early or come in late on a particulr day. At least then you are getting the full benefit of the deducted time.

Maybe we aren't looking at this the same way because I know that there are salary laws in Maryland and that there are some things that you can and cannot do. Let's forget about the issue with the vacation leave being used and say I work 42 hours in one week. One of these days, I leave 30 minutes early. My employers solution is to dock me FOUR hours and pay me 36 hours for the week, when in reality I have worked 42 hours. They aren't going to pay me for 6 hours that I actually worked because I leave 30 minutes early one day. To my knowledge, labor laws for salary employees in Maryland prevent this. The reason I mentioned my vacation leave is because we have the "option" to use it to cover the time missed. If we choose not to, they believe they have the right to deduct 4 hours for only 30 minutes missed.

It is legal because there is no law that says they can not do this.

The way around it is to take a half day off if you know you need to leave early or come in late on a particulr day. At least then you are getting the full benefit of the deducted time.

There is no law that says they don't have to pay me for actual hours worked, or agreed upon hours in my case, since I'm salary? I'm off the vacation leave being used part. It's actually irrelevant. I work 42-45 hours per week and they can pay me for on 36 hours just because they choose to, instead of the 40 hours I am supposed to be paid?

My employers solution is to dock me FOUR hours and pay me 36 hours for the week, when in reality I have worked 42 hours.

Not entirely correct. If you elect to take the vacation time, your paycheck remains the same. It is the amount of vacation time that is available to you that has changed. This is legal under both state and Federal laws.

If they ACTUALLY dock the dollars in your check (and this is the first time your post has mentioned this in a way that is clear to the reader) that is a violation, yes.

My employers solution is to dock me FOUR hours and pay me 36 hours for the week, when in reality I have worked 42 hours.

Not entirely correct. If you elect to take the vacation time, your paycheck remains the same. It is the amount of vacation time that is available to you that has changed. This is legal under both state and Federal laws.

If they ACTUALLY dock the dollars in your check (and this is the first time your post has mentioned this in a way that is clear to the reader) that is a violation, yes.

If I tell them, because they give the choice, that I do not want to use 4 hours of vacation time to make up for the 30 minutes I left early, they will deduct 4 hours of time from my pay and only pay me for 36 hours. That is what I am having a problem with. I have the option to not use vacation leave to make up for the missed time. They are not paying people their complete salary when the hours have, in reality, been worked. If I had worked only 40 hours for the week, which is NEVER the case, then I would have no problem with them deducting the 30 minutes I left early. That is not what they are doing though. To me, it is like they are stealing from their salaried employees because those employees choose not to play into the game of giving up their vacation leave for what is basically a non-existent issue since the employee has worked the minimum amount of hours contracted to work under their salary agreement, and in most cases more than the required hours.

Okay. Calm down. Your initial post was not clear.

If you are correctly classified as exempt, the ONLY time they may legally dock your PAY (as opposed to vacation time) in partial day increments is if you are on FMLA. They MAY NOT legally dock you four hours of PAY (though they may dock you four hours of vacation time) if you miss 30 minutes of work. Or any other length of time, either. If you work any part of the day, you have to be paid for the entire day (excluding intermittant FMLA absences). They may take it out of your vacation time if they want to and they can take as much vacation time as they want to cover the absence. But the number of dollars in your paycheck has to remain whole.

There ARE instances where your pay, meaning dollars, can be docked in full day increments. But for partial day increments, it can only be done in FMLA situations.

Elle and I both believed initially that you were only referring to the use of vacation time and that is what we responded to.

OK, deducting actual pay assuming you are an exempt employee, for partial day absences when it is not for an FMLA qualifying reason is illegal. Not paying you for time you actually worked is also illegal, no matter if you are exempt or nonexempt, hourly, salaried or other.

Requiring that leave be charged in 4 hour blocks no matter how much time you take off is perfectly legal. So is charging leave even when you have worked more than 40 hours across the week, or even more than 8 hours in a day. These aren't necessarily good practices, but they are legal because no law prohibits them.

If you have actually lost pay the remedies available to you are explained here http://www.dllr.state.md.us/labor/wagepay/wpremedies.htm