Hello all! I stumbled onto this site and now have 2 questions about time sheet reports and az labor laws? :confused:

1) I'm a Lead CDL driver who works for a soda delivery company in Tucson. Since my first day of employment, myself and all drivers are having 30 minutes deducted from our times everyday as lunch breaks regardless to whether we are able to take lunch or not. (95% of time not able to take lunch) I inquired about why and I was told by my Boss it was due to az labor laws...

2) Being a Lead driver and working from 3:30am to 1:30pm. I was told that one of my duties was to check and "revamp" the time sheet for missed punches. (clock ins and outs) Being a CDL driver we are federally regulated to work no more than 14 hrs a day and no more than 70 hrs a week. This is not my problem. I have been told by my boss(Man A), his boss(Man B), and the HR Super(Female A) that I have to make changes to the time sheet report everyday to reflect that these federal regulation hrs are not exceeded on paper. I expressed my concern and unwillingness to do so, but have been verbally told by Man B that I have to do so since it is "part of my job description." I'm afraid to go any further up the chain of command cause I'm afraid to lose my job but my fear of jail is even larger. please give me some advice!!! thx alot

Arizona does not require any breaks at all. Your employer is either confused or lying. Even if the state DID require a thirty minute unpaid lunch break, if you work it, you must be paid. The company can discipline you for not taking a break, but it still must pay up for the time worked.

If an employee of mine punches in this morning at 7 AM and fails to clock out, there will be a lot of time worked, on paper (actually, in the software report). Clearly, since the employee actually gets off at 3 PM today, this failure to punch out needs to be corrected.

If that is all that is happening, there is nothing illegal going on.

On the other hand, if you actually worked in excess of DOT allowed hours and are told to trim the hours back to conform with the regs, that would be a problem. I am not very familiar with DOT rules, but suspect that agency would be one that would handle a complaint. This would, I think, result in a company wide audit of the time keeping, including interviews of current and former drivers.

Your employer is either confused or lying.

Maybe both. The two conditions are not mutually exclusive.

In any event, federal law requires that Non-Exempt employees be paid based on all hours worked. There is nothing any state or any employer can do to make federal law go away.

ok! I love that this site is up... I'm now getting conflicting info. I was also told that yes az does not have a law for the requirement of breaks and lunches but I was also told that osha makes it mandatory to have breaks and lunches? can anyone confirm? :confused:

And yes all three people mentioned up above have told me to "TRIM" the hours to conform to Federal Regulations. thanks again people for your imput.

As I mentioned in my reply to your PM (which really was unnecessary), so that others can benefit from the answer, the answer is, for general employment, no. Can whoever is telling you that OSHA requires meal and rest breaks provide the regulation/guideline?

Thanks all for responses to my inquiries.

I have one more question. I've see other people talking about being exempt or not. how does this pertain to the automatic deduction of "lunch breaks" and how can I find out whether I'm exempt or not?

Thanks again to all who've replied!!!:D

If you are "exempt", with limited exceptions which don't appear to apply here, you get the same salary weekly, no matter how many or how few hours you work. You also must meet the job duties criteria for exempt status, which, based on what you said you did in your job is doubtful. However, you can read about the different classifications of exempt status here:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17a_overview.htm