Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

I have a new Full-time job. My schedule is 7a-3:30p. The company does not let "certain" staff members park on site and states that we have to park in an employee lot that is 15 minutes away. The Co. states that in order to be on time to the actual work site we have to be at the "lot" at 6:45am to be at the worksite by 7am via a shuttle they provide from the lot to the site. The Co. states that they do not have to pay us for the extra 15 minutes early in the am and the 15 minutes late in the pm. They will only pay us for our exact shift at the site e.g. 7am-3:30pm when the pay should be from 6:45am-3:45pm. The reason I feel that this is illegal is that although a Co. is not required to provide a shuttle, if they are "making"us park in this lot causing us all to have to arrive to work early and not be able to get us to the lot until 3:45 or later at the end of the day, then isn't it their responsibility to pay us for this extra time we are spending due to them not letting us park on site? we who have to park in this lot are really upset. If you require an employee to be somewhere at 6:45am to make it to work "on time" then shouldn't our clock in time be 7:45am? Please advise, thank you!


Asked on 2/03/17, 11:08 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

In my opinion, it's legal and not challegeable in court unless the extra 30 minutes causes your overall compensation to fall below the minimum wage or causes your total on-duty time to exceed some legal threshold, both of which seem unlikely. Employers have wide latitude to set the terms of employment, so long as they do it beforehand. They can't change the work terms after you've put in the time and before payday.

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Answered on 2/04/17, 8:57 am


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