CanI sue a company if I was not paid for 5 hours of orientation and training?
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CanI sue a company if I was not paid for 5 hours of orientation and training?
I was hired by a national restaurant chain and they had me go through orientation and training for about 5 hours. I then was told they had tried to put me in the computer and I was marked as not re-hirable. This resulted in them telling me that I could not work there. However I was never compensated for the lost time in those 3 weeks that they put off after hiring me, nor for the 5 hours that I worked.
Asked on April 13, 2011 under Employment Labor Law, Missouri
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 13 years ago | Contributor
1) There is no compensation for the time you spent waiting to be told whether you would have work or shifts, etc., unless you were being hired as a salaried position *and* you had an official start date. Once you hired in a salaried capacity, you need to be paid at your salaried weekly rate after your start date, whether your employer has you doing productive work or not.
However, if you were hired for an hourly position, you're only paid for time actually spent working, so if you were not working, no pay.
2) Whether you need to be paid for the 5 hours of training and orientation depends on the exact circumstances. If it was part of the interviewing/hiring/etc. process, then probably not; if you were hired first, then trained, you probably should be paid--though since you'd need to bring a legal action to get the money, it's probably not worth pursuing.
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