Employment Law - Minimum Work Hours
aspen29
33 Posts
Dear Forum Members:
Our company is based in New Jersey and 70% of the workforce is under Collective Bargain Agreement -CBA. According to CBA, if ee scheduled to work on a particular shift and ee is sent home for overstaffing, the ee is entitled to be paid for 4 hours. However, there is no clear policy for
non-union workforce regarding overstaffing. I believe it is only a company policy. Please advice me whether there are any federal or state laws in this regard.
Further, do you know whether NJ has "English" only
communication at workplace? Please advice me.
Thank you.
Our company is based in New Jersey and 70% of the workforce is under Collective Bargain Agreement -CBA. According to CBA, if ee scheduled to work on a particular shift and ee is sent home for overstaffing, the ee is entitled to be paid for 4 hours. However, there is no clear policy for
non-union workforce regarding overstaffing. I believe it is only a company policy. Please advice me whether there are any federal or state laws in this regard.
Further, do you know whether NJ has "English" only
communication at workplace? Please advice me.
Thank you.
Comments
Thank you for your prompt response. Ours is a 24x7 operations with 6 shifts. We schedule with 5% cushion for tardiness & absents and if every one shows up some times it creates overstaffing.
Meanwhile, I am not familiar with "call in". Please advice me.
Thank you.
"Call in" would put the burden on the emplyee. The emplyee calls in at a certain time to find out if he is to be at work that day. And then the employee reports to work if an when he is told to. This wouldn't be done for the unionized emplyees unless you negotiated that.
The problem with that apporahc is that employees don't want to not know ahead of time when they will be working. So, in order to keep employees happy, you may have to pay them a minimal rate of pay basically for being on call but able to spend their free time as they see with but respond to the "call in" or "call back" in a reasonable ammount of time. A situation like that really loosens the ties between employer and employee if it is done on a regular basis just for the regular work day (not for extra work or emergencies).
Thank you for prompt response. I have reviewed New Jersey State Wage and Hour Law and there is no regulation to pay for minimum hours. Bottom line is we are trying to reduce the payroll expenditure by re-negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Thank you again for your input.
As for English-only policies, I haven't heard of any laws specifically on this subject - the question is whether it's discrimination. I think we've discussed this on the Forum before - try the Seach button at the top of this page.
If you're an Employment Law Letter subscriber, there are plenty of English-only articles in the Subscribers Area of this website.
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/lc/[/url]
James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
Thank you for your prompt response. I clearly understand your point of view. It shows "discrimination" and demoralizing. But bottom line is we are trying to reduce the payroll expenses. We will try to re-negotiate the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Thank you again.
Two thoughts.
1. A previous responder mentioned that if the nonunion employee is not paid, that employee may decide that a union is the right way to go. I agree. But I also think paying nonunion employees the same benefits that the union personnel get, would be an excellent incentive for getting union personnel to rethink the value of joining a union. Why should I pay union dues if nonunion employees get the same benefits. If there are no benefits to joining a union, you may be able to get the union off your property.
2. As far as paying overstaffed workers just for showing up, why not put them to work for the four hours? There must be something that needs to be done. Sometimes we have a really important product run that must meet a short suspense time. We can't afford to be a few workers short On those rare occasions we will bring in extra workers to guarantee the run is completed. We also quarantee the extra workers a minimum of four hours of work/pay. If the extra workers are not needed, they have the option of going home with no pay or working for the four hours. We have them help clean the plant or assist in another department. There's always some department or dock that needs cleaning or some project that we never seem to have the time to accomplish. This is your opportunity. They can even help maintenance as long as it's done safely. Your union employees may not like this since they would have to work for the four hours of extra pay, but your nonunion employees would be more than willing to work for the extra pay. You would obviously have to check your CBA to make sure you can require the union employees to work for their pay. It's sad that we even have to consider the need to have someone work for their pay!
Just some casual thoughts. Good luck.
Your thoughts are great. I will look in to your second thought particularly
Thank you for your input.
The other day, I contacted the NJ Wage & Hour Law department. I was advised that there is no minimum to pay and it's only a company policy. However, I will further research.
Thank you for the input.