As an employee, you are entitled to be paid for every minute that you are working. Many employers round down the amount of time that you are clocked in. For example, you may be scheduled to work an 8-5 shift. However, you may have clocked in for work at 7:53, and yet, your employer might only have paid you starting at 8:00. Likewise, while you may have clocked out for work at 5:03, your employer may have stopped paying you at 5:00. These extra ten (10) minutes that you were working and which your employer failed to pay you constitute compensable time for which you are entitled to be paid wages pursuant to the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law.
This illegal rounding down of the time for which you are working might also be costing you overtime pay. Under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law, provided you are not an exempt employee, you are entitled to be paid one and one-half times your regular rate of pay for all time worked over forty (40) hours in a week. As a result, if adding the extra time for which you have not been paid places you over forty (40) hours worked in a week, you would be entitled to payment for any such work at a rate of one and one-half times your regular rate of pay.
If you believe that your employer has illegally rounded down the amount of time that you have worked, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss recovering for you the wages and overtime pay that you are owed. Under the New York Labor Law you can go back six (6) years to recover unpaid wages for time that you worked. Under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act you can go back as many as three (3) years if the employer failed to pay you the wages willfully. This can add up to quite a bit of money that is owed to you. In addition, employees who have not been paid all of their wages may be entitled to recover from their employer liquidated damages (twice the amount of wages and overtime pay that you are owed) as well as attorney’s fees and court costs.
