Dive Brief:
- In a putative collective action, a Sam's Club employee has alleged that the employer and parent company Walmart failed to pay proper overtime pay because its timekeeping system did not accurately track all hours (Thomas v. Walmart Inc. and Sam's West Inc. dba Sam's Club, No. 18-4717 (E.D. Pa., Nov. 1, 2018)).
- The plaintiff alleged that the company's timekeeping system rejected any efforts to clock in more than 15 minutes before an employee's scheduled shift, as well as attempts to clock out more than 15 minutes after shifts were scheduled to end. Instead, it would record workers' scheduled start and end times and pay them accordingly. Punches made within those 15-minute windows were paid properly, the suit says.
- The suit seeks collective status and proposed a class of "all people who have worked in any Sam's Club store on a full-time hourly basis" during the relevant period.
Dive Insight:
The FLSA requires that employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. It also requires that employers maintain accurate records of the hours worked.
As for unauthorized hours worked, DOL says employees must be paid for work "suffered or permitted" by the employer even if the employer does not specifically authorize the work. Experts, however, say that employees may then be disciplined for breaking workplace rules prohibiting unauthorized work.
And when it comes to rounding, the FLSA allows an employer to round work time to the nearest quarter hour, i.e., 15 minutes, according to DOL. Employee time from one to seven minutes may be rounded down, and not counted as hours worked, but work from eight to 14 minutes must be rounded up and counted as a quarter hour of work time. Experts recommend, however, that employers using these practices keep an eye on the results to ensure that the nature of the work or workplace does not more often lead to rounding in the employer's favor.
Accurate recordkeeping remains mandatory, too. During the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Labor said in a guidance that employers need not record employees' exact start and stop time; only the employees' total hours worked had to be noted. However, some experts warned that such a practice could lead to trouble as it may not meet the agency's "complete and accurate" standard for timekeeping.