Employers 'time shaving' employees time cards - isn't that stealing?

This is really something to get the blood pressure up:

<snip> Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe. The practice, commonly called shaving time, is easily done and hard to detect — a simple matter of computer keystrokes — and has spurred a growing number of lawsuits and settlements against a wide range of businesses.

<snip> "There are a lot of incentives for store managers to cut costs in illegal ways," said David Lewin, a professor of management who teaches a course on compensation at the University of California, Los Angeles. "You hope that would be contrary to company practices, but sometimes these practices become so ingrained that they become the dominant practice."

<snip> "A lot of this is that district managers might fire you as soon as look at you," said William Rutzick, a lawyer who reached a $1.5 million settlement with Taco Bell last year after a jury found the chain's managers guilty of erasing time and requiring off-the-clock work. "The store managers have a toehold in the lower middle class. They're being paid $20,000, $30,000. They're in management. They get medical. They have no job security at all, and they want to keep their toehold in the lower middle class, and they'll often do whatever is necessary to do it."

Another reason managers shave time, experts say, is that an increasing part of their compensation comes in bonuses based on minimizing costs or maximizing profits //

more at: Altering worker time cards

Hello, McFly, isn't this stealing? If an employee steals, don't they go to jail? Amybody think there is gonna be a rash of disgruntled employees maiming dishonest employers? Gods, when will the workers in theis nation just all stay home for a week? If everybody does it, a few employers might just realize we (and they) are all in this together. Who is gonna buy their crap if nobody gets paid a living wage? ARRRRGGGGGGGG

but what they do is send you home early to balance out the hours worked.my daughters boy friend has had this done to him several times in the last year.

thereby not paying them for time already worked! And WalMart has been found to do that too!

By using computer time cards, management can 'adjust' times after teh fact, shaving a few minutes here, a few there. Adds up to $$ lost for wage earners already struggling. Some companies have been shown to threaten and /or actually fire management people who refuse to do this to their employees.

No, this is not sending folks home to avoid going full time or overtime. This is actually removing time from their timecards after the fact.

Some compainies have been fined for it. But if a worker steals, what happens? We need to start seeing management people going to jail for the shit that is going down these days.

and then don't pay them. Isn't free enterprise great?

Daycare where my wife worked. I threw a fit and called the center director a sweatshop slave driver and my wife was subsequently fired. Edit - adds: This woman also had a cop show up after I verbally drug her over the coals (just called her on what she was doing - there was no abuse, etc.) when I went to pick up my wife and baby from that hell hole later that evening.

Go figure.

down to the minute for what the clock records and then match it up with what the pay stub shows. Nail the rat bastards for it every time and it will stop.

I had a boss years ago who always managed to make a mistake on at least one employee's pay check. Funny thing about mistakes, you'd think once in awhile he would make a mistake where he paid for a minute more than a worker worked. Nope, it was always an error in his favor. Amazing how that worked. that was back before computer time cards. We had to actually write in our times in and out so at least we were aware of our actual time.

With computer time keeping, it is easy to doctor the times and unlikely the employee will notice.

I repeat: ARRRRGGGGGGG!

the boss would never pay what they worked and they needed proof to challenge him. He'd shave hours and deduct extra money as "laundry expenses" for their mandated uniforms.

It's journalism's dirty little secret. (I'm an ex-reporter.) They do this to the youngsters, for the most part. Mess with their minds, tell them it's their fault, that if only they worked hard enough they could get everything done in 40 hours; therefore, it's not the company's fault, and the company shouldn't be charged for their sloth, right? The kids figure it out eventually, that to get ahead you have to play the game. So they work 60 hours a week and get paid for 40, and wait for the time when they will move on up the ladder, where working conditions are better (?)

is an article about the two mistrials in less than six months...

The recent Tyco case, with a CEO charged with stealing $600 MILLION from investors, the other for an investment banker charged with obstructing justice.

Whatever went on with that juror sounds like...

So, the greedy mother fuckers are stealing from minimum wage employees, at all kinds of companies, AND stealing from stock holders.

They're sick. They have millions of dollars, and it's not enough.

They can't pay people a basic fucking living wage, and the wage they do pay...they then STEAL FROM THEIR EMPLOYEES!!!!!

It's enough to make you reach for the pitchforks and torches, you know?

This country is being corrupted absolutely by the rich fuckers who already have more than they could ever need. They don't care about this country. They are selfish to the core.

And Bush is their poster boy.