SNOW DAY
Chefsint
23 Posts
Our NJ office was closed due to excessive amounts of snow. Some of our employees worked from home that day.
We will be paying all of our employees for the snow day (7 hours). Should we pay additional hours to the employees that worked for the actual time they put in?
Legalities?
Comments
You >must< pay a full day to all the exempt, salaried employees.
If you are paying the hourly employees, you needn't pay except according to policy, past practice, and hours worked. For those who went out of their way to actually perform while everyone else watched cable television, you may want to think of a way to reward them.
We do it different at our company - and TXHRGuy - I'm interested to know what you think about it in particular considering you are in TX.
We make employees take a vacation day and if they choose not to or don't have enough vacation days, then we deduct from their paycheck. Our understanding is that we can deduct a full day from a salary person, but we can not deduct from a salary person if they work any part of the work day.
Any thoughts on this?
We do it different at our company - and TXHRGuy - I'm interested to know what you think about it in particular considering you are in TX.
We make employees take a vacation day and if they choose not to or don't have enough vacation days, then we deduct from their paycheck. Our understanding is that we can deduct a full day from a salary person, but we can not deduct from a salary person if they work any part of the work day.
Any thoughts on this?
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This is a little confusing to me because you have not separated exempt, salaried employees from hourly employees (and I'm ignoring the possibility of non-exempt so-called salaried employees and other unusual methods of compensation for non-exempt employees). Also, there's a difference between deducting from a leave bank and deducting from pay.
Texas Vacation Law
Texas law only matters here with respect to vacation in this context. It's easy in Texas because the law says that vacation is whatever you say it is. As long as it is documented in policy and communicated to employees, you can do whatever you want with it. Forcing the use of vacation is permitted in Texas (and probably the whole of the 5th circuit unless there's a state law preventing that). I see no problem with deducting from leave banks for non-exempt, hourly employees. Texas may not care about the deduction from paid leave banks for exempt, salaried employees but it's not immediately clear to me that FLSA does not conflict. See below.
Non-Exempt
Texas does not care if you pay and deduct from leave banks, pay and do not deduct from leave banks, or don't pay and don't deduct from leave banks when it comes to non-exempt, hourly employees' pay on an involuntary site closure day due to inclement weather.
Exempt
FLSA is controlling when it comes to the salary basis of pay. First things first: if any part of a week is worked, and you have an involuntary temporary site closure (e.g., due to inclement weather), then you have to pay the full salary amount, period (ok, not quite "period" if it's the initial or terminal week of employment or if the employee is known to be unready, unwilling, or unable to work such as being out on FMLA leave or having such leave pre-arranged to start during the closure). There's no question about that.
29 CFR 541.602(a)
[...] An employee is not paid on a salary basis if deductions from the employee's predetermined compensation are made for absences occasioned by the employer or by the operating requirements of the business. If the employee is ready, willing and able to work, deductions may not be made for time when work is not available.
So the only thing up for debate is whether or not you can or should deduct from an exempt, salaried individual's paid leave bank(s) during such closures.
While it's understood that you can deduct from leave banks for a voluntary partial day off work (provided the full salary amount is paid, regardless of whether or not the leave bank goes negative), the situation here is neither necessarily partial day nor is it voluntary: it's an involuntary site closure. The authorization for the leave bank deductions for partial days of work stems from wording in the preamble, "employers, without affecting their employees' exempt status, may take deductions from accrued leave accounts" and citations to DOL letters such as those dated 12/04/88, 05/27/99, and 02/16/01. It's not actually spelled out directly in the regs that this is OK, so there is no way to simply point to a paragraph and say eureka, it's ok. I am not immediately comfortable with the idea of deducting from paid leave banks for exempt, salaried employees for partial or full day absences due to involuntary site closure caused by inclement weather.
You can deduct from a person's vacation bank, but if he/she does not have the time in the bank then you can not deduct from a salary exempt person's pay for the snow day, even if he/she did not work any part of that day.
Our Alaska office actually closed for a snow day about a month ago. (Yes, it took a considerable amount of snow and ice to close things down). We paid all employees (exempt and nonexempt) for 8 hours. Although we don't have a policy on this we felt it was a good gesture.
Our Alaska office actually closed for a snow day about a month ago. (Yes, it took a considerable amount of snow and ice to close things down). We paid all employees (exempt and nonexempt) for 8 hours. Although we don't have a policy on this we felt it was a good gesture.
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The main point of my as-yet hidden post is that the leave bank deduction is probably OK in terms of Texas law vis a vis exempt, salaried employees but I think it still violates FLSA. The reason why is because the site closure is an involuntary loss of work time, it's not a voluntary partial day of work, which is what the preamble and opinion letters permitting leave bank deductions for partial days worked refer to. You have no choice in any state but to pay salaried employees a full day in these situations (some caveats covered in coming post) and that is not a state issue. That's FLSA, which is federal.
Hourly employees you can do whatever you want with respect to a day they don't work. FLSA doesn't require hourly employees to be paid for hours they didn't work (although the definition of "work" can be convoluted).