I work in a hospital and am required to attend mandatory meetings each month. I work nights and 12 hr shifts. My supervisor says I must attend these meetings that are set at 3:30 in the afternoon. This is in the middle of my night. I have asked if there could be two meetings. One around 7:00 am and the other at 3:30 pm. That way it is convenient for everyone,or day shift could get up in the middle of their night and come to the meetings at 3:30 am. That did not go over well. This is a Rehab unit, so we have physical therapist that attend, they only work day shift. That is the reasoning I am receiving. I was under the assumption that if a mandatory meeting is called, it has to be made available for each shift.

They can call a mandatory meeting at any time. However; if you are a non-exempt employee, you must be paid for this time since it is mandatory.

FLSA regulation 785.28 Involuntary attendance.
Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer. It is not voluntary in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.

An exempt employee would have to attend if mandatory but they would receive no add'l. pay over their regular fixed weekly salary.

If a mandatory meeting is not attended, you can be disciplined up to & including being terminated.

They can call a mandatory meeting at any time. However; if you are a non-exempt employee, you must be paid for this time since it is mandatory.

FLSA regulation 785.28 Involuntary attendance.
Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer. It is not voluntary in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.

An exempt employee would have to attend if mandatory but they would receive no add'l. pay over their regular fixed weekly salary.

If a mandatory meeting is not attended, you can be disciplined up to & including being terminated.

I work for a virtual call center that is based in Colorado, but I live and work in Texas for the center from my home. We have many programs within this center, and most employees on the "front lines" are hourly and work from their homes. The uptraining for the program I work on, as well as most others I know of in the company, takes place outside of scheduled hours, and is unpaid.

1. I receive frequent emails for mandatory unpaid training sessions to be read and tested over on my own time, unpaid.

2. There are now large group meetings held to pass on information important to keeping, or improving our performance on the job, but are "voluntary" unpaid meetings, Townhalls/Workshops.

It seems that the first instance is in direct conflict with the regulation listed above, correct? How about the second scenario, any thoughts?

The exact rules are summarized below. All four conditions must be true for the time to be unpaid. From the employer's side of things, and based solely what you have said, the weak points are the "voluntary" and "not job related" rules. Based on that, I would say you have a strong argument.

HOWEVER!
- We are looking at only you have to say. Your employer will probably come up with a different versions of facts. They might even lie.
- We can show you the law but we cannot tell you how a court or ALJ will decide. You tell your story, your employer tells their story, and the judge gets to decide whose story they like best. Nothing we can say will change that.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.pdf

Lectures, Meetings and Training Programs: Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time only if four criteria are met, namely: it is outside normal hours, it is voluntary, not job related, and no other work is concurrently performed.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_785/29CFR785.27.htm