jacobtucyonk
New Member
Hello,
My wife works part time at a zoo in New Jersey (NJ) at $12 per hour (minimum wage in NJ is $8-something per hour).
She is scheduled for 30 hours per week with work days ending at 5:00pm on the schedule.
However, she almost always has to work past 5:00pm because of the nature of the work and employees needing to leave together for safety issues working around animals. She is not being paid for the time worked past 5:00pm, even though she clocks out after 5:00pm and her time sheets say she worked extra hours.
For example:
Her pay stub says "64 hours worked. 60 scheduled hours. 4 extra hours. 60 hours paid."
Her paycheck reflects being paid for 60 hours, despite working 64 hours in that pay period. Additionally, the zoo posted something saying "Employees will only be paid for scheduled hours."
Is this legal? Can the employer not pay employees for some clocked hours? It is my understanding the federal department of labor cannot intervene because she is technically being paid at least minimum wage, even this scenario because 60 hours at $12 per hour is still at or above 64 hours at $7.25 per hour. I am in the process of contacting the NJ department of labor but I wanted to get other advice and thoughts from lawyers, if possible.
She is afraid to go to HR or payroll for fear of being fired for saying something and is afraid of reporting to the DoL for the same reason. It would make sense to me that the employer either let employees leave at 5:00pm no matter what or pay them for the hours worked past 5:00pm. It is also my understanding that this is happening with the full time employees but I do not know if they are not being paid for overtime, but that is not important for my wife specifically anyway since she is part time and never goes over 40 hours per week.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you!
My wife works part time at a zoo in New Jersey (NJ) at $12 per hour (minimum wage in NJ is $8-something per hour).
She is scheduled for 30 hours per week with work days ending at 5:00pm on the schedule.
However, she almost always has to work past 5:00pm because of the nature of the work and employees needing to leave together for safety issues working around animals. She is not being paid for the time worked past 5:00pm, even though she clocks out after 5:00pm and her time sheets say she worked extra hours.
For example:
Her pay stub says "64 hours worked. 60 scheduled hours. 4 extra hours. 60 hours paid."
Her paycheck reflects being paid for 60 hours, despite working 64 hours in that pay period. Additionally, the zoo posted something saying "Employees will only be paid for scheduled hours."
Is this legal? Can the employer not pay employees for some clocked hours? It is my understanding the federal department of labor cannot intervene because she is technically being paid at least minimum wage, even this scenario because 60 hours at $12 per hour is still at or above 64 hours at $7.25 per hour. I am in the process of contacting the NJ department of labor but I wanted to get other advice and thoughts from lawyers, if possible.
She is afraid to go to HR or payroll for fear of being fired for saying something and is afraid of reporting to the DoL for the same reason. It would make sense to me that the employer either let employees leave at 5:00pm no matter what or pay them for the hours worked past 5:00pm. It is also my understanding that this is happening with the full time employees but I do not know if they are not being paid for overtime, but that is not important for my wife specifically anyway since she is part time and never goes over 40 hours per week.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you!