Legal Question in Employment Law in California
I work at a retail company and as we all know Black Friday is a huge event. The company I work for to be competitive opened up at Midnight Thursday Night-Friday Morning. I clocked in for work at 11:20pm and continued to work until 9pm Friday evening with 4 one (roughly) hour lunch breaks in between. This gave me 8hours of regular pay, 4hours of overtime and 6hours of double time. However the company implemented as of Tuesday night, an update to our scheduling system which would count all work done Friday morning until 5am as being one shift for Thursday and all the following hours to be counted as a shift for Friday. Furthermore the system clocked all associates out from work at 4:59am and clocked them back in at 5am to do this. By doing this they affectively cut my double time from 6 hours to 1 and increased my regular pay by 5 hours. All this cutting my pay for the day by about $100USD, and the store by about $32,000USD and the company by about $1,216,000USD.
Now, to the best of my knowledge the company cannot do that because it was done with the purpose of avoiding to pay the over time. Not to mention, that again to the best of my knowledge, it is not legal for them to forcibly clock me out from work and then back in without my express permission. The company also does not have it listed anywhere what it considers to be a 24hour work period. Although, traditionally, or rather what I have seen from the past, if we worked past 12pm it would count as part of one shift. I live in California.
Is this company breaking any laws and if so can I be fired for reporting, or even suing them?
1 Answer from Attorneys
I am curious as to why you report the money in United State Dollars and not just dollars; since we live in the same City I a well aware of the large ethnic diversity of residents and that several big box retailers opened late Thursday night [Walmart, Sports Authority, etc.].
Of course they violated the implied contract you had with them by changing the work rules, your work personnel rules and booklet, labor laws, etc. Yes, they probably will fire you for reporting the matter and very likely will fire you if yo sue them. You are an "at will" employee [no written contract, no union protection] so can be fired at any time with no reason having to be given.. Your best protection is to get together a large group of co-employee to complain with you so that the company will be reluctant to fire so many people and get such bad press coverage. You should ask HR on what basis the changes were made; i doubt the labor board will take a complaint without your giving your identity. You could contact the TV consumer program "7 on your side" for advice. There are several local attorneys who do employment law [especially 1-2 firms i know of in Oakland]. Since none of you along could afford an attorney, you will need to find an attorney who would handle the matter on a percentage fee basis.
Good luck.
not proof read
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
