Washington State Department of Corrections Sued for Back Wages

Just Because It’s Hard Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Have To Do It

Posted on 25-Jun-08 by The Timekeeper

According to an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal, the US DOL is suing the Washington State Department of Corrections for overtime and record-keeping violations involving up to 800 employees. The

Apparently parole officers, corrections specialists and other department employees weren’t paid overtime when they worked more than 40 hours a week — possibly because (as the suit also alleges) the state didn’t keep accurate records. According to a news release from Donna Hart, director of the Wage and Hour Division’s Seattle District Office, the total amount of back wages due hasn’t been determined but is expected to be in the millions of dollars.

The problem, according to DOC officials, is that community corrections officers don’t always work a “normal” workday.

“We are emphasizing to the Department of Labor that CCOs often work irregular schedules so they can make unannounced visits at the homes of people on their case loads, get them to treatment programs, transport them to jails or prisons at night or on weekends and do other work that doesn’t fit within 8-5 schedules. Those irregular hours make tracking working hours more difficult,” Karen Daniels, DOC’s assistant secretary for community corrections, is quoted as saying.

Daniels is quoted in an article in the Seattle Times as saying managers don’t keep their employees from taking overtime, but that many corrections employees are hard workers who often don’t put in for overtime. “It isn’t a job that is covered adequately by an 8-to-5 schedule,” Daniels said. “They hear over the years there are budget pressures. They just feel some responsibility and conscientiousness.”

Sheralynn Andrews, an office assistant whose complaint kicked off the case, had a slightly different point of view: “Employees are afraid to put in the overtime. They have been constantly told for years there is no money in the budget. You get disciplined if you don’t have prior approval and you get disciplined if you can’t keep up with the workload.”

But you know what? Bottom line, it doesn’t matter if it’s hard to track employee time. The law doesn’t say keep accurate records, but only if it’s easy to do. And it doesn’t make any difference if the employees don’t put in for overtime because their conscientious, or if they’re not putting in for overtime because they’re afraid of being disciplined. The law doesn’t say pay them overtime, but only if they ask for it, and only if you want to. If they’re eligible for overtime and they work more than 40 hours a week, you have to pay them time and a half for the excess hours.

So if it means you have to get creative about how you track time, you get creative. There are tons of alternatives on the market today, with more coming out all the time. Employees can clock in and out over the web, through their telephone or cell phone, using a PDA or Blackberry… the possibilities are almost limitless.

And make sure before you start cracking down on “unauthorized” overtime that the workloads of your employees are reasonable. If you’ve given them a workload that can’t be accomplished in a standard 40 hour week, you’ve just got to suck it up and realize there’s going to be overtime. No fair disciplining people for working overtime, and then turning around and disciplining them for not getting all their work done when you were the one who piled on all the work in the first place.

Sometimes things just aren’t easy.