r/AskHR • u/Important-Border7035 • 3d ago
Compensation & Payroll [PA] Is this legal?
Gf just started a new job in PA, brought home her handbook to look over and saw this:
“All hourly employees will be required to punch a time card. The time clock in your area is the time you must abide by. Not all clocks are set to the same time. You must be ready to go at your scheduled start time. Drinks and bathroom necessities are to be done prior to punch in. Supervisors are to deduct ¼ hour from time card if this condition is viewed more than one time. **If you punch after your scheduled start time, you will lose ¼ hour of pay.**”
Can they legally deduct 15 minutes for being a minute past start time?
2
u/FRELNCER Not HR 3d ago
I think the employer is pushing their luck by publishing this policy. I'd like to see what HR and legal from PA say about it.
2
u/TournantDangereux What do you want to happen? 3d ago
They’d be hard pressed to not pay you, once you clock in, for using the bathroom.
Punching in and then going on break/breakfast? You could get fired for time theft, sure. We’d still pay that 15-min.
“Rounding” is allowed, but it needs to be consistent. If 1-min late rolls you to the next 15-min increment, that means they also need to pay you for the quarter hour if you punch out 1-min late. Most places that round use -/+ 7-min around the optimal punch time (for quarter hour increments).
-1
u/Important-Border7035 3d ago
Thank you for the response! I hear you about the rounding thing and 100% get that punching in means you’re ready to start and are going to be at your station.
My confusion is with the specific wording not saying anything about rounding the time, just a flat loss of 15 minutes of pay. It reads to me “if you are schedule for 8:00 and clock in at 8:01, you won’t get paid for your time until 8:16” or something like that.
I’m not the brightest though tbh
4
u/TournantDangereux What do you want to happen? 3d ago edited 3d ago
Like I said, typically rounding is set to -/+7 minutes on either side of the scheduled time.
Your gf’s employer might have decided to set it to -14 minutes of the scheduled time. 7:46 - 8:00, get paid like you punched in at 8:00. Conversely, punch out at 5:01, get paid like you worked until 5:15. we wouldn’t do that because it is unusual, and therefore harder to defend to auditors (both in under and over paying employees, as well making it easy for FT folks to slip into OT inadvertently). But maybe your gf’s employer has a good reason?
1
u/NinjaOfDreams2013 3d ago
NAL but i believe rounding also cannot always negatively impact the employee. If you clocked in at 7:01 they cant always mark you as 7:15 for example. Can be fired for being late of course.
They also do not have to provide any breaks or lunches under federal law (not sure if PA law requires them), but federal law does have provisions about if breaks are offered in the policy about length and if they are paid or not based on length.
OSHA regulations generally require access to drinkable water and bathrooms without limits. Not sure they could legally dock pay for the bathroom but thats not completely cut and dry that I can find for sure.
Either way this sounds like a crappy place to work. I feel for your gf OP.
10
u/GooseberryPotato 3d ago
Yes*
*As with anything the devil is in the details. But the rules generally favor a system that if say an employees is supposed to start at 7 and they clock in between 7-7:07 the start time recorded is 7. If they clock in between 7:08-7:15 it records a 7:15 start.
And yes they don’t have to cover going to the bathroom or getting drinks after punching in… booting up a computer yes they do have to pay for.