It's a normal event for many people working retail and fast food. Your store is nearing the end of the night. The store isn't clean enough for the opening shift the next day and the payroll budget won't support any more staff hours. The closing manager then bullies the night staff to "clock out" and go back to work preparing the store for the next day's business. Tomorrow night is a repeat performance. By the end of the week each employee worked about 3 hours "off the clock".
That's just one definition of wage theft. Here's another one.
You show up to work in the morning, but you aren't allowed to clock in for almost an hour, maybe more because there are no customers in the store. As soon as someone steps in, the staff can clock in.
It's highly illegal.
A variation on the theme is when the staffing budget is running short of hours at the end of the week and an employee is told to take a 2 hour lunch....which would be nice if it was planned in advance so the employee could make good use of that time; but that's not how retail is. At least in this case the employee isn't working for free, they just have an extra hour to...... in the middle of the day.
Then there's the "on call" hours that have been in the news. The store doesn't have any budgeted staff hours, but the store manager believes they will receive approval to bring in another employee that day, so someone is told they are on stand by. They need to hang out by their phone for the entire shift in the event that they are called into work. That really sucks because you can't go to the movie or do anything that doesn't allow you to get into work attire and arrive at work more or less within an hour.
It happens every day. Store managers get away with this illegal behavior because the employees are too afraid to report it. If they don't work off the clock, they are afraid they will lose their job. They are afraid to report it to a higher manager, because they don't know if the General store manager or the regional manager is "in on it". They are afraid to report it to the employee compliance hotline, because they are afraid their voice recording will be heard by their store manager and they will lose their job. They are afraid to report it via the internet because they are paranoid that somehow, corporate will track the complaint back to them for retaliation.
For every Papa John's (like) $800,000 settlement, there's probably 10 times that in unreported violations from other fast food and retail chains (as well as construction). Who knows how many stores get away with forcing employees to work and extra 3-5 hours a week for free, deduct wages unafirly, denied overtime and more. It's rare to read about fed up employees that successfully pushed through a class action suit against their employer.
So with that back drop in mind, I listened in dread as my family member asked me what to do about the fact that they are forced to work off the clock for 3-4 hours every week at a big box retail chain. It turns out it is only one manager who does it; the designated closing manager. The other two store managers seem to follow the law and make a big deal about being clocked in while working. Then report the bad manager to the general store manager, right?
Well, not so fast. What if that manager is just following the general manager's orders and they are too stupid to realize they will be caught, not the general manager? We went through all the issues listed up top. What if I report it and it comes back on me? What if the manager can spin it into making me look like a liar? What if management retaliates by closing the store? What if? What if?
I told them to find a way to anonymously report it via the corporate hotline or internet. They decided to do it from a friend's computer.
Meanwhile they are looking for another job.
Not that working for another employer is likely to help.
I'm not sure how we got here - this systemic abuse of power rampant in many aspects of daily life. Oh, I know a lot of it has to do with Limbots and the Koch funded agenda, but I'm not sure why so many people screwed by this agenda vote for people hell bent on perpetuating a system that victimizes hard working people. I understand the greed of top management, but I'll never understand why and how the average person in the street goes along with it.