A Case of Wage Theft

[Ghel]

I'm pretty sure my employer is failing to pay one of my coworkers for the time she works, but she doesn't care. So there's not much I can do about it, other than support her if she ever does make an issue of it.

You see, we have a cleaning person who cleans the bank twice a week. She arrives about half an hour before anybody else and cleans for about an hour. The cleaning person doesn't have a key, so an employee has to be here to let her in. Often, that's the Branch Manager, who's in a salaried position, so his pay wouldn't change. But on days like today, when BM is at the main branch, our Head Teller comes in early to let in the cleaner. HT is usually the first person who arrives in the morning, anyway. She's one of the people who can turn off the alarm.

HT doesn't get paid for that extra time. Any overtime has to be approved and all that BS. It's why I'm out the door as soon as we lock up for the night. I'm not going to worry about a couple minutes while the tellers put away their cash and lock the vault, but when it starts getting into tens of minutes or longer, I'm gonna start getting pissed that I'm not getting paid. I've mentioned to HT that she should be getting paid for coming in early, especially on the days when she has to come in half an hour early to let in the cleaning person. She brushed it aside. She doesn't seem to care. So I haven't mentioned it again.

As an aside, I wish HT would follow the many security trainings we've had and wait until a second employee arrives before unlocking the bank. It would be so much safer for her. We get complacent because we're in a small town and we've never had a robbery. But it could happen.

[Kristev]

Some people are simply volunteers rather than victims.

[RealUnimportant]

Someone always has to be first. But they don't necessarily have to be doing work that early, so unless they want to make an issue of it themselves I'd leave it as-is. You've let her know she's probably eligible for some kind of balancing somewhere, maybe there is something like an extra few minutes break somewhere or leaving early sometimes, who knows. But unless and until they feel it needs addressing, it doesn't. Forcing the issue may cause more problems than just getting them paid for being on-site at a time they apparently are happy to be on-site.

[EricKei]

Technically (in the US), employers can neither "require" nor "allow" people to work without pay, per the FLSA. I understand that this CW doesn't care about it, but it's just something to keep in mind.