Is it legal for someone to clock out an employee before the employee has completed his or her work for the day?
Posted 01-09-2013
Steve Duggan replies:
It is not legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act or most state laws for a manager or supervisor (I don’t know who else would do that) to clock out an employee before he or she has finished for the day, if the employee is not then paid for all the time she worked. Having employee(s) work off the clock, for whatever reason, is a sure way for an employer to get in trouble with the United States Department of Labor. If a manager tells an employee to not work past a particular time and the employee does, the only remedy for that is some form of discipline, up to and including termination, but the employee still has to be paid for the work that they performed allegedly without authority.
Information here is correct at the time it is posted. Case decisions cited here may be reversed. Please do not rely on this information without consulting an attorney first.
