Protecting companies from hourly employees
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@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
So in your example, even if someone does not employ you, but you do work, you should get paid? What if, while at McDonald's, you sweep the floor and clean some tables? Can you demand that they pay you? They did not agree to employ you, yet you did work.
No, I never said that. That would be a valid example of volunteering. Your example wasn't.
What's the difference? In both cases there is no agreement for the person to be working. Why is doing work for a place you don't work at at all different from doing work for a place you don't work at at that time? Both are disallowed, but you can't stop a volunteer.
This begs the question, is an hourly employee even employed when they are off of the clock?
apparently they are as long as the boss knows they are working. If the boss isn't aware, then told later, assuming because the employee wants to be paid more, then in that case who knows, some court will decide, but I'm guessing ultimately, assuming some sort of proof of work can be provided, the employer will pay, then can their ass.
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@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Dashrender said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
The game here is much like a car chase I was involved in once. The cops wanted to catch someone speeding, so to get the speed up their never turned on their lights or siren. That doesn't change that speeding is not allowed, but it is not resisting arrest until they attempt to pull you over. Someone took the opportunity to make it a high speed car chase and outrun the cops who foolishly decided to play a game of "get the speed up" instead of just turning on the lights and giving a small ticket.
Same thing here, HR is playing a game of not making it disallowed to work off hours. The lack of policy alone makes the employees more or less allowed to do it. That IT is playing games to make it a cat and mouse thing and HR is refusing policy decisions would, I would think, make it clear to a court that work outside of stated hours was totally allowed. That so much effort was put into not not allowing it makes it obvious that it is indeed allowed. Insane, but allowed.
This assumes there's no policy in place about OT - as a salary day one employee I've never paid attention to that.. so there very well may be a policy against OT without direct, specific permission.
Not your place to know, this is purely for your manager to know and communicate to her staff.
it's important to the conversation though. If only to show that there is an HR policy, and they are choosing not to enforce it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Dashrender said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@MattSpeller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@JaredBusch said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Dashrender said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
In this case, the manager assume the employees were volunteering their time as suggested by someone above.
Which is not allowed according to the link DOL artilce. Management knows. They must be paid.
So pay them, write them up, fire them.
How does this situation even get this far? Are people really doing this or is it a thought exercise?
I just can't even this whole post.
there's currently no real issue, possibly because currently staff is either unable or unaware of their abilities to work outside the office.
That said, the rest of the OT discussion is a though exercise.
They can always just "think" about work and claim the time.
who can? I thought only professionals can do that? not hourly employees.
I say this mostly tongue in cheek. -
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
This begs the question, is an hourly employee even employed when they are off of the clock?
Yes, unless you explicitly fired him/her.
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@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
I think the DoL examples make perfect sense, *if you are employed by the business, if you work
and it is approvedyou get paid.FTFY.
and I FTFY
This is also missing the and the manager knows about it.
From what I can tell here, if the manager doesn't know, you don't get paid. -
@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
This begs the question, is an hourly employee even employed when they are off of the clock?
Yes, unless you explicitly fired him/her.
That's the question, if you explicitly tell someone that they cannot work for a month, that's a lay off. Do it for a week, it is too. What makes a day any different?
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@Dashrender said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
From what I can tell here, if the manager doesn't know, you don't get paid.
Very hard to get paid when no one knows to pay you. In no case can this ever go over a single reporting period.
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@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
But the similarity is that neither is employed at the time of the action.
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Because 1 just isn't enough for the entertainment in this thread today. -
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
This begs the question, is an hourly employee even employed when they are off of the clock?
Yes, unless you explicitly fired him/her.
That's the question, if you explicitly tell someone that they cannot work for a month, that's a lay off. Do it for a week, it is too. What makes a day any different?
And I'm completely serious here, this is something I've wondered about a lot. Salaried employees are employed "all the time" but hourly are not. That's why you can work a second hourly job without asking permissions, once you are off the clock the company can make no demands on your time, you are free of the job. You just have an agreement to come into work at the next agreed upon time.
This is how jobs are able to "schedule off" people that they don't like. They don't have to fire them, they can just stop giving them hours. If they were "still employed" it wouldn't be that simple. But as the end of every shift is an agreed upon furlough, it works. But since it is, the person that never worked at McDonald's, the person that did two years ago and the person who did five minutes ago are technically all the same - not currently employed.
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What makes one a big deal and the other not is that unemployment reporting requires a wait period. If you get scheduled off, even though you are still "employed" you get to still claim unemployment legally. Since unemployment works that way, I think that it means that my theory is correct that it is a sixteen hour furlough, or whatever, legally between when you clock out and clock back in.
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@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
But the similarity is that neither is employed at the time of the action.
Not true. The employee is employed from the date he was hired until the date he quits or is terminated. Just because he works at an unscheduled time does not make him unemployed.
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@scottalanmiller You can tell an employee to go home for the day, evening, whatever. That's not the same as terminating their employment.
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@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
What's the difference?
Easy... one is employed and the other is not.
But the similarity is that neither is employed at the time of the action.
Not true. The employee is employed from the date he was hired until the date he quits or is terminated. Just because he works at an unscheduled time does not make him unemployed.
It does by law, that's how you get to claim unemployment.
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@scottalanmiller Again... cite?
Edit: I read too quickly and thought you were responding to my other post. Still, I stand by my post that a person working at a non-scheduled time is still employed up until the point that he gets terminated for said work.
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@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller You can tell an employee to go home for the day, evening, whatever. That's not the same as terminating their employment.
Are you sure? Because it acts exactly the same in every way. They have no rights any different from anyone else that is terminated. All legalities behave identically when you send someone home, furlough them or lay them off.
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@Danp said in Protecting companies from hourly employees:
@scottalanmiller Again... cite?
Cite how unemployment works? Do you really need a reference? Otherwise I could employee everyone in the country and simply refuse to give them hours, they'd be unable to claim unemployment because they would be "employed". Obviously that isn't true, it should need no citation because it is so obvious. I doubt that there is a citation to be made, it is that obvious. I'm not even sure what to call it. Because it is literally the same as being laid off, lay off rules would apply to it.
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And if you say that the employee can opt to quit when no hours are given - that does not work because quitting a job doesn't give you unemployment benefits.
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Lay Offs are defined in Texas, clearly being sent home at the end of the day is exactly like any other action:
"Laid Off
Layoffs are due to lack of work, not your work performance, so you may be eligible for benefits. For example, the employer has no more work available, has eliminated your position, or has closed the business."
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/jobseekers/eligibility-benefit-amounts
That's Texas, but all states basically work the same.
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No, cite how a person would be considered unemployed when they are between their daily shifts.
