I work in the fast food industry. If you don't have the sales versus the scheduled labor can you force the employee's to go home early? Or can you have them go home early only if they agree? Please help if you can. This is an on going thing in our restaraunt. I need to find out what the laws are in California for this as to make me an effective supervisor in our company and not violate California labor laws. Thank you for the help.

You can send home employees when you want.

However, if you start cutting employee's time, you should make sure that you aren't discriminatory in your cuts.

Even if you have no such inclination, if you end up sending home only your, say, older workers you are going to catch a bunch of trouble.

Also, you should also look around for job fairs and start putting an ad in the paper. When you institute a policy where people can not count on a steady paycheck, you should prepare for most to leave.

Yes i understabd that. And do know everyone should rotate on going home early. I just know that California is very picky about the way things are done work wise. So was wondering if there is a law in california about hours being cut? And thanks for the advise.

I also would like to know what are happen if they refuse to leave work? At that point can you make them leave?

Yes, you can make them leave. Technically if they remain on the property and refuse to go, you could have them arrested for tresspassing but I'd make that a dead last resort.

Yes, you can require them to leave. If they refuse to leave, you can fire them.

You should be aware that CA is one of the very few states that has a "reporting time" law. There's nothing preventing you from sending them home, but if you send them home after working less than half of the time they were scheduled to work, you will have to pay them for part of the time.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_ReportingTimePay.htm

Businesses like Fast food, retail, etc are based on customers if the day is slow they often send uneeded employees home rather than pay them for no work. Its legal and happens all the time