My employer has a policy where lose of time is taken for being tardy

for example I had 3 Drs. appointments one time I was late punching in by 1 minute and 1 time late by 30 minutes for furnace problems, what my employer has done subtracted missed time from the different weeks paychecks and also taken away 2 hours for each time towards my allowable time for being tardy so in total I have had 10 hours taken from me for missing about 2.5 hours worth of work also the time was taken from my regular weeks pay.

Can they do this


Michael Seymour
Massachusetts

Are you exempt or non-exempt?

Did you lose pay out of your check, or was paid leave (vacation, sick time) used?

Iam a regular hourly paid employee and have not used any vacation or sick time as I have not been employed there long enough to qualify for these

While your employer does not need to pay you for time you didn't work, they can't institute additional financial penalties for being or being absent.

I can't tell though whether you're talking about your employer's absentee policy being docked for your absence time in what you consider to be excessive amounts (which would be legal) or whether your paycheck is being docked above and beyond the actual time you didn't work (which would be illegal.)

Please clarify.

the policy is if you punch in 1 minute late or leave 10 minutes early they subtract that time from our paychecks and it is an automatic 2 hours of absent time most of my time missed is for Doctors appts or dentists I understand on a regular work day hours are from 7am to 3pm but employees have no control over when the doctors have available times

That's still not very clear but the best I can make out is that the minimum amount of time your employer allocates to your absentee record is two hours. I expect there's some sort of point system or limit on hours missed as part of their policy that you're not explaining. There's nothing illegal about that.

As to docking your pay for the actual time you are absent, they may do that.

most of my time missed is for Doctors appts or dentists I understand on a regular work day hours are from 7am to 3pm but employees have no control over when the doctors have available times You can't control when you get sick or have a toothache and need to unexpectedly see the doctor or the dentist but you can schedule routine visits and regular checkups sufficiently in advance so that you can get apointments after 3pm.