Overtime on Alternative Schedule

[mightymoose]

A co-worker just bounced a question off of me that I had no answer for. We work an alternative schedule (law enforcement) in which we regularly work three 12 hour shifts and one 10 hour shift the first week of the pay period, and then two 12 hour shifts and one 10 hour shift the second pay period, for a total of 80 hours.

In the first week of the pay period he was coming off of sick leave after being out a month following surgery. His time would have looked like so-

Sun- 10 hours sick time
Thu- 12 hours regular plus 3 OT
Fri- 12 hours regular
Sat- 12 hours regular

End of first week- 46 hours regular plus 3 OT

*Sun- 12 hours regular plus an additional 12 hours OT into Monday (search/rescue team called out)
Fri- 12 hours regular
Sat- 10 hours regular

End of second week- 34 hours regular plus 12 OT
Total- 80 hours regular plus 15 OT

The problem:
The supervisor, when reviewing the time card, erased the first 10 hours of sick time on the first week and changed 10 of the 12 OT hours in the second week to regular hours. This left him still with 80 hours on the pay period, but reduced OT to a total of 5 hours.

The question, obviously, is if that is allowed. If so, what allows it? Everything I was able to find in the labor laws refers to 8 and 10 hour shifts and there wasn't much in there in the way of other alternative schedules.

It seems abnormal to have a guy work 24 hours straight and only get 2 hours OT out of it. The justification for the change was that the OT is not owed unless 80 hours in the pay period are actually worked- that only hours over 80 are required to be paid in overtime. Of course, my co-workers argument is that the sick time was not OT, rather the extra 12 hours at the end of his shift in the second week of the pay period. It seems unusual, at the end of the second week of the pay period, to go back and wipe out 10 hours sick time that was used at the very beginning of the first week of the pay period.

Does this make any sense to anyone? Is it a legitimate change by the supervisor or a major goof? He is upset but doesn't want to make a stink about it unless he can find something in the law to back him up- but it does amount to about a $500 difference in pay.

 

[Patricia_Young]

Is this an approved-by-the-state AWS?

 

[mightymoose]

I am going to assume so... it's the county sheriff dept.

What I am finding out now is that the county policy/bargaining agreement might be what controls this. We may just have to get ahold of whatever the local rules are on this.

Essentially what has happened here is that at the end of the pay period, after the time card was signed and submitted, the supervisor effectively "flexed" 10 hours OT in the second week to substitute for the 10 hours sick time at the beginning of the first week.

From what I have been told, due to our work schedule, supervisors can flex across the 80 hour period, but flexed time has to be taken off of the last day of each work week. That means that the overtime could have legitimately been "flexed off" by having the co-worker not work on the last day. By the time the supervisor saw the issue it was too late to flex, so he swapped the OT with the sick time hours. I'm still trying to find out if the switch is a legitimate change.

My co-worker just feels burned because the way it works out, after working the 24 hour shift, he got paid nearly the same as if he hadn't worked the extra 12 hours. He didn't work a 24 hour shift in order to save sick time used the week before.

 

[Patricia_Young]

Ah, now we have an issue. Generally speaking, there are exceptions in the FLSA for employees of a government agency who perform protective services, such as firefighters, police officers, EMTs, etc. I honestly don't know if California accepts these exceptions (with or without AWS).

You definitely want to research the bargaining agreement.

 

[mightymoose]

Well for now I have referred him to the union rep. Hopefully that will get things sorted out. It has me curious though, and yes, it seems the answer will be in the bargaining agreement. I was just wondering if there was something else in law that controls this. I suppose with the bargaining agreement, just about anything else in the labor law goes out the window, huh?

 

[Patricia_Young]

Some does, yeah. Not the CBA as much as that, in combination with a government employer.