My Boss Keeps Asking Me to Dock Money From My Own Paycheck. The Reasoning is Absurd.

"Dear Good Job, I'm currently in a work position that absolutely sucks. The pay is at the absolute bottom of the industry-it's half of some of the positions I've seen. I am very frankly very overqualified for this position, too, but because of my spotty work history due to a long illness, I'm having trouble getting hired anywhere else. I've never worked anywhere that so blatantly does not care about its workers. But I'm writing about one thing in particular that involves my pay."

"They keep asking me to sign out when I have tech problems. I work from home and have a virtual system on my computer that I work through. It's been very glitchy lately, and when I have to reset it, one of my managers tells me to clock off. There have been other instances, like me having to come pick up new hardware from the office, where they've asked me to clock out when coming in."

"Gather round, children, and let me take you back to when the government used to at least pretend to care about workers. You see, workers were so badly taken advantage of by rapaciously greedy employers, that unless there were laws to protect them, employers would just do whatever they wanted! (Yes, unions helped a lot with this too!) One of these laws is a fun one called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and one part of the FLSA is the "Hours Worked" section. There"

A remote employee with low pay and a spotty work history faces frequent technical problems and is repeatedly asked to clock out during interruptions. Managers have required clock-outs for resets and when the employee comes to the office to pick up hardware, effectively making work-related time unpaid. The employee believes all tasks performed for the company should be compensated and doubts on-site workers would be treated the same. Federal wage law, notably the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), contains an Hours Worked provision intended to define and protect compensable work time. Historical labor protections and unions helped establish these rules.

Read at Slate Magazine