I am working on a temporary project this month. I arrived at work today. I was supposed to work eight hours. My employer only had work for two hours. She has informed me that I will only be compensated for two hours instead of the full eight she had asked me to.
Is this legal? I turned down other work for this assignment.
I am furious about this.
I am pretty sure it’s legal. When I worked retail I used to get scheduled for shifts and sent home early all the time if there was no work. For example I would be scheduled for 8 hours but sent home after 4 because there was not enough work to keep everyone busy. Pretty standard. Unless you have some kind of contract or statement that says they will guarantee you so many hours of work, I think you’re out of luck.
Even now that I am working in an office, we can still get sent home or told not to come in for bad weather or power outage or whatever, and it is up to the employer whether they want to compensate us for any or all of that time.
It probably depends on the state you are in. In MA, you would have had to have been paid for at least 4 hours even if you worked only 2 or zero.
Are you a temp through an agency or directly with the company? I believe in MA it doesn’t matter - you still have to get paid for the 4 hours - but perhaps it makes a difference in other places.
You could try looking up the Fair Labor Standards Act and see if this subject is addressed. Or contact your state’s Labor Board and ask.
The FLSA doesn’t address scheduling and the matter is left between the employer and the employee. As mentioned above there might be State regulations that require that an employee be paid a minimum number of hours when scheduled to work.
While mucking around on the DOL website I also learned that “youth, at any age, may be employed as homeworkers to gather evergreens and make evergreen wreaths”. That’s nice to know.
What does your contract say?