Hi,

This post might make me sound like a huge whiner, but I have a question regarding Colorado labor laws. My company is taking all the employees on a cruise for our holiday party. This cruise is mandatory. The company is paying for airfare and the cruse cost (rooms and included meals). Employees are required to pay for any incidentals on the cruise - drinks, snacks, souvenirs etc. We will be missing 2 days of work to travel to and from this vacation - something the employees were not notified of prior to plans being made and being told the vacation was mandatory to go on. The company will NOT be paying us for any of the time we're gone - travel to the cruise, cruise time, and return travel. Employees are being forced to either be short pay, use vacation/sick time, or make up the hours missed by working extra.

My question is this: is it legal to not pay us for the time we're required to be at a company function, regardless of what exactly we're doing while at said function? If anyone has "chapter and verse" of where in the Colorado laws any applicable information shows up that would be best.

Thanks to everyone for helping with this question.

Also, it might be helpful to know...this is in regards to hourly employees only.

My question is this: is it legal to not pay us for the time we're required to be at a company function, regardless of what exactly we're doing while at said function?

Probably not legal. I am going to cite federal rules. They are good in all states.

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.

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You have a different problem not mentioned. If the employer is going to claim that this is not work time, then all costs just became taxable wages to the employees.