Sunday, October 21, 2007

Comp Time versus Common Sense

Example 1: Jim, a full-time hourly warehouse worker, typically works a 38-hour weekly schedule, Monday through Friday. For payroll purposes, the seven-day workweek for all warehouse employees runs from 12:01 a.m. Sunday through midnight the following Saturday. Because of the arrival of a particularly large shipment of inventory, Jim has already worked 38 hours by the end of the day on Thursday. Things have slowed down toward the end of the week. Jim's supervisor, anxious to avoid overtime, tells him not to come in on Friday. Is that OK?


Kara Shea, writing in the Tennessee Employment Law Letter, answers questions about comp time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If time comp became legal, over-time would become non-existent and hourly employees would end up with terribly erratic schedules. It would be just another way that managers would have working class employees "under their thumbs." I used to work for an assistant manager who constantly used comp time with one of her employees. At first I thought it was brilliant (because I'm young and had never heard of comp time before) but then the slave-drive took a half day while the comp-time employee pulled a 60 hour week. The assistant manager's attitude was, "My time is worth more than his." I filed a complaint against that assistant manager when I left.

Michael Wade said...

Anonymous,

You are correct. The laws were established for a reason and any law would have its arbitrary points. There is often a choice of evils and the current restrictions are the result of a recognition of how comp time can be abused.