Legal Question in Employment Law in California

I am the administrator for a law firm in Southern California. We hired an experienced associate attorney three months ago to fill-in for another of our associates out on a long-term medical leave. The new employee's position here is expected to last about one to two more months. Her attendance has been unacceptable to the law partner for which this associate was hired to assist. She is very regularly significantly late in the morning and takes numerous partial days and full days off for personal and illness related reasons. Management is frustrated and insistent that I dock her salaried pay for missed time. The employee can be categorized as a salaried exempt professional. I understand that I may only dock full-day absences for this exempt employee. And by the way, we have a 10 day annual paid sick leave policy, with sick leave during the first 90 days paid only after the completion of 90 days.

Management seems to think that since this employee was hired as a "temp", she should not be eligible for our sick leave policy and the federal wage and hour laws may not apply to her. Does the fact that this employee is "temporary" have any bearing on her pay treatment? I can't imagine that it would.

I have been trying to gather federal and California employment law information from the internet for days now. Any info you could provide as to what we can and should not do with regard to this employee's pay would be greatly appreciated. I wish there was something definitive that I could find and print for our partners. They want to see the law. Thank you.

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