I work in a child day care center for minimum wage. The director is big on having "mandatory" staff meeting's on Saturday's and we never get paid for our time. Also we are required to have trainning classes, these usually happen in the evening's or again on Saturday's. We have to have the trainning according to state child care law's, I get that but is it legal for the director/owner to not pay us for our time while in the class?

Thank you,
Brenda :confused:

Assuming that you are a Non-Exempt employee (someone who has a legal right to paid overtime), then it is legally difficult to not treat meetings as hours worked (close to impossible actually). Training is more complicated. There is something of an exception for state mandated training but that is a narrowly worded exception.

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

29 CFR 785.27 - General.
Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
(a) Attendance is outside of the employee's regular working hours;
(b) Attendance is in fact voluntary;
(c) The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee's job; and
(d) The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.

From the Payroll Source book:

"Employees did not have to be paid for time spent in classroom training and testing to obtain licenses required by the state and to meeting continuing educational requirements. Even though the training was clearly related to the employee's job, the regulations allow such training to be uncompensated since it was provided by an independent institution ... The training was also voluntary because the state imposed the licensing requirement, not the employer. [Federal DOL opinion letter 9-15-97].