Is it legal to require your employees to work unpaid?
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Is it legal to require your employees to work unpaid?
I am a flight attendant and am curious to know how the laws work. We are required to be at work an hour before a flight (unpaid). We have to be there or we get in trouble. We are required to board the aircraft, greet passengers, help with bags and any other issues that may arise (unpaid). We only start getting paid once the aircraft is fully boarded and the door is close and the breaks are released. We also stop getting paid once we land and the airplane door is opened again, however we must remain on the plane till all passengers have gotten off and are required to clean the plane unpaid. If there are delays, which may sometimes be hours, we are required to stay in the airport and wait till they are ready with a flight (because we are “on duty”) and don’t get paid. An example : Report at 7 am to do our crew briefing fly 3 flights which equal 8 hours of “flight time” of which we get paid but after everything, in between flights, briefings, a delay, cleaning we actually worked 15 hours.
Asked on December 28, 2011 under Employment Labor Law, New York
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
The key issue is whether you are hourly or salaried staff. If you are hourly, you must be paid for all hours worked--and work includes briefings, meetings, greetings, setting up, cleaning up, etc. (Basically, if you are at the work site at the employer's behest, it's work.) Hourly staff would also be paid overtime if/when they work more than 40 hours in a week.
If you are salaried, you are paid a weekly salary for all work that you do, whether it's productive time or unproductive, nominally "paid" or "unpaid"--the salary covers it all. (Though note: it is possible for a salaried employee to still be eligible for overtime when he/she works more than 40 hours in a week; to be exempt from overtime, not only must you be paid on a salary basis, but you also must meet one or more the tests for an exemption, such as being executive staff, certain kinds of administrative staff, a highly educated professional, etc.--you can find the tests for overtime exemption at the Department of Labor, or DOL, website.)
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