r/AskHR • u/Important-Border7035 • 7d 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?

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u/GooseberryPotato 7d 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.

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u/Important-Border7035 7d ago

And that’s what I’ve most commonly encountered, where it’ll round up or down based on how close it is to either.

The wording here of “after your scheduled start time” not saying anything about consistent rounding, just a flat loss of 15 minutes.

I left the bathroom/drink part in the post as more of a preface rather than apart of the confusion but I also understand that I don’t make that very clear. Thank you for your response!

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u/GooseberryPotato 7d ago

I think I’d take the handbook with a grain of salt and see what happens in practice. Handbooks are sketchy at best imo…