Forced to go home due to inclimate weather and forced to use vac/per or OT Missouri

[JPeanut503]

We were told around 10:45am that we were to go home by 11:30am due to the inclimate weather. After coming in at 6:30am we had decided we would just stay until 2:30 and get our 8 hours, since we had found out we were not getting paid to leave. Then we found out it was not an option to stay we HAD to go home. After returning to work the next day, we found out that we had to use either vacation time, personal time, or use our overtime from during the week and turn it to strait time!! When this week began we had no intentions of our overtime being cut due to weather on a Thursday.
We are all hourly employees in a transportation department at a scrap metal company, we are paid weekly.
Can our employer force us to go home after we were already at work?? Not to mention we had already worked 5 hours, and were willing to stay. The weather never got that bad and at the time we would have normally left work (3:30 or 4) there wasn't even any precipitation. They just sent us home in "anticipation" of bad weather.
Is this legal??

[Pattymd]

Yes, the employer can force you to go home.
And yes, it is legal to use your vacation PTO time to substitute for the missed hours.

[JPeanut503]

Yes, but what about using your overtime and turning it to strait time?

[cbg]

Did you actually WORK over 40 hours in the week? Or did your being sent home mean that you actually worked under 40 hours?

I am not talking about how many hours you were paid for; I'm talking about how many hours you were working.

[JPeanut503]

Yes I did work over 40 hours this week....but being forced to go home cut my overtime down. Not to mention the day we were sent home, everyone in my office was here an hour early to get stuff done.

[cbg]

You need to be paid straight time for the first 40 hours you work, overtime for any hours you WORKED over that, but any hours for which they choose to pay you that you did not actually work only needs to be paid at straight time. The fact that you would have worked more overtime if they had not sent you home is not relevant.

[ElleMD]

If you just have fewer hours that week because you were sent home early, then it is perfectly legal. As long as when you add up all the time that you worked across the whole week, anything over 40 hours is paid at time and a half it is legal.