hello, i'm new here.....question

the place that i work at sent us all home at noon monday, had an 800 number to call to see if we had to report on tuesday, of course we had to report, we get there and then at 10:00 am they sent us home again. my question is this.......we were paid for Tuesday, but not for monday......why and is that right? we work on a large computer system that crashed and they new it was going to be a while for the system to be brought up, so they sent us home, then they thought it would be workable the 2nd day, but come to find out, it wasn't. we did not have the choice to stay. we were told to leave, take unpaid time, or personal paid time if you had any for the first day. why ????

If you are an exempt employee, they were legally required to pay you your full pay for both Monday and Tuesday. There is no law prohibiting them from substituting vacation or other paid time off for that pay. If you were out of paid time off, they would still have to pay you the full salary. However, the law only requires that you receive your full salary for any day in which you worked part of the day; only that your salary gross salary not be reduced.

If you are a nonexempt employee, they were required to only pay you for all hours worked, including those hours while you were at work, waiting for something to happen.

ok, i'm not sure about the exempt and nonexempt thing, but i'm pretty sure it is exempt. and i'm not salary, i'm hourly. can you show me something that i can submit to HR to try and get monday paid for? thanks!

If you are nonexempt, you must be paid overtime. With very few exceptions, if you are paid hourly, you would be classified as nonexempt.

For definition of hours worked, see here (you may have to page through several subsections):
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_785/Subpart_C.htm

To confirm, you showed up Monday at your regularly scheduled time; you waited for the system to come up, it did not, and at noon, they sent you home, right?

ok, i'm hourly, so that makes me non exempt. yes, monday everyone showed up when they normally do, i got there at 7:30 am, building opens at 7 am, they system was already down when i got there. it was noon when they told us we HAD to go home, take personal time, or unpaid time.

tuesday we had to check the 800 # to see if we were suppose to go in, yes, be thereat 8:30, everyone got there, at 10:15 they told us we had to go home, but tuesday is paid for.

They still have to pay you for Monday for the hours you worked. For the hours remaining in your shift, they can require that you utilize your Paid Time Off entitlement to keep your pay whole for the day, if they wish.

well, i don't have any personal time left so i have to take it unpaid. i read through that link you sent me, but didn't find anything that i could take to them. i would love to find something in writing to say they have to pay us for sending us home! thanks for your help!

But that's what I'm saying. If you are nonexempt, they DON'T have to pay you for the time you missed because they sent you home. If you didn't have any PTO you could utilize, you're SOL. Sorry.