Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia

Clocking in and out

My supervisor and director keep telling me I must clock in at my desk rather than at the timeclock. They say that I must be sitting at my desk ready to work when I clock in. I use the timeclock next to the employee entrance where I come in to the building. I am the only employee held to this standard. Must I comply? Is this a form of discrimination? Sometimes I am a few minutes tardy, never more than 5-10 minutes. I have been denied access to training which would advance within the medical practice where I work based on my insistance on using the time clock. Some days it takes as much as 5 minutes to get the system up, log on to three screens to get to the password protected log in and then click on ''clock in''. If it's the random day that you are required to change your password, it can take several more minutes. When I pose this argument, I'm told that I can tell them to change it. I'd be doing that everyday. Is this legal? If I were written up and let go for this, would I have legal grounds to sue? These are Doctors and they seem to think they can dictate anything. They give us a 45 minute lunch with no breaks. I work in the front office in customer service, I am not clinical nor do I treat patients. Please help


Asked on 7/23/08, 11:11 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: Clocking in and out

Unless you are protected under a contract of employment or collective bargaining type of agreement with respect to this particular issue, this company could fire you at any time over this issue and you would be without recourse nor remedy.

(And, your charge of discrimination would not fly on these facts, in my opinion.)

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Answered on 7/26/08, 4:02 pm


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