My daughter is telling me that her place of employment was not supposed to allow overtime,so her supervisor is docking 11 hrs off her pay? How can they do this? They use a timeclock. They have also called her in on her days off to work.Who do we contact about this? Surely it is not legal! All the employees are being docked and are P.O'd needless to say.

It is legal to call her in to work on her days off.

She must be paid for all hours worked, including paying overtime if she worked more than 40 hours in a work week (not necessarily the same as a calendar week) unless she is legitimately classified as an exempt employee.

Yes we understand they can call you in on days off Lord knows we never worked a job that didnt! But he is saying hes gonna take her OT pay away.Like you said she is entitled to her pay (time and a half.)Who do we contact if he actually does this? And what exactly is a exempt employee?

She can either file a claim with the federal Dept. of Labor, or file a civil suit in the Florida courts. Florida itself has very weak wage and hour laws, and defaults to federal for nearly everything except minimum wage.

And what exactly is a exempt employee?

Someone who legally does not have to be paid overtime, no matter how many hours they work.

Sometimes, employers misclassify an employee as exempt. Some do it because they really think the employee is exempt when the employee is not. Some do it to avoid overtime.

The supervisor has said he was going into the system and change their hours . They use a computer system for time.

So, has he done it and has it resulted in her getting paid for fewer hours than she worked? Then my previous answer applies.

There were a rash of employers changing hours within the system to deny their employees overtime over the past several years. Our firm handled some very large class actions dealing with this same behavior all over the U.S.

Your daughter should contact an attorney to ensure that she is getting all the pay she is entitled to. She should also keep her pay stubs and other information that would help prove what her employer is doing.

It is never an acceptable excuse for an employer to say that they don't allow overtime. If overtime is worked, overtime must be paid (unless the employee is exempt from the overtime law, which is not usually the case for employees who use time cards).

It is true that a non-exempt employee who works overtime must be paid whether it is approved or not. However, an employee who works unauthorized overtime can be disciplined or fired for doing so.

It is not even remotely true that an employee who punches a time card is unlikely to be exempt. Many, many exempt employees are required by their employers to keep time records for purposes of client billing, keeping track of hours based benefit eligibility (FMLA, 401k), keeping up with vacation or sick time used, even safety (they can tell instantly who is and is not in the building in case of fire or other emergency).

CBG: I see your point on clocking hours; I should have been more precise.

As a rule of thumb, if you are clocking in and out and you are paid on an hourly basis, you are probably non-exempt. That may not always be the case, of course. It is only a rule of thumb.

I didn't mean to suggest that recording hours worked alone would be sufficient to conclude someone was non-exempt. However, if an employee is paid based on the hours she is recording, there is a decent chance she is non-exempt.