Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA), all employers must pay their employees for every hour they work. If you are an hourly employee, however, you may not always leave on the hour or arrive on the hour. In these situations, your employer must ensure that they follow time rounding guidelines to comply with federal wage and hour laws.
Unfortunately, not all employers follow these rules, rounding their employees’ time in order to reduce the amount of wages they have to pay. To ensure you receive fair and accurate wages, it is important to understand the laws about time rounding in New York state.
The Time Rounding System Must be Fair
New York does not impose specific laws on how to round hourly wages. Instead, the law requires employers to adhere to federal guidelines established by the FLSA. Title 29, Section 785.48 of the Code of Federal Regulations establishes the following rules for time rounding.
- Employees must be fully compensated for all hours worked.
- An employer’s time clock rounding practices must average out so that all employees receive full compensation for the hours they work.
- An employer’s time rounding practices cannot only benefit the employer.
To comply with federal law, employers must apply their time rounding system fairly in all situations. An employer cannot always round down, for example, in order to avoid paying wages. For example, say an employee clocks in at 8:05 and the employer rounds it up to 8:10. The employee clocks out at 5:05, and the employer rounds it down to 5:00.
This employee will then lose 10 minutes of wages, which is a violation of federal law. If the employer consistently applies this practice, the employee will lose wages each time he or she goes to work. To average out the employee’s wages, the employer could round his or her 8:05 clock-in to 8:00 and continue to round his or her 5:05 clock-out to 5:00.
Employers Must Round to the Nearest 15 Minutes or Less
To avoid these inconsistencies and ensure each employee receives fair wages, the FLSA imposes certain rounding requirements. Employers must round to the nearest five minutes, the ten minutes, or the nearest 15 minutes.
If the employer is rounding up or down in 15-minute increments, he or she must begin rounding up between eight to 15 minutes. FLSA prohibits employers from rounding to any increment of time greater than 15 minutes.
- If an employee clocks in at 8:04, the employer can choose to round the time down to 8:00, or up to 8:05, 8:10, or 8:15.
- If an employee clocks in at 8:07 and the employer uses 15-minute increments, the employer must round down to 8:00. If the employee clocks in at 8:08, the employer can round the time up to 8:15.
- If an employee clocks in at 8:04 and the employer rounds the time up to 8:30, the employer violates federal law.
The more rounding time the employer uses, the more vulnerable he or she is to liability. It is important for all New York state employers to establish guidelines on time rounding that comply with FLSA standards.
Getting Help from a Syracuse Wage and Hour Attorney
Complying with federal labor standards is a requirement for New York employers. If you believe your employer is engaging in unfair or illegal wage and hour practices and you are losing wages, contact a Syracuse employment attorney as soon as possible. Your attorney can help you explore your legal options and secure your rightful wages.
FAQs
Does New York State have its own time rounding rules that are stricter than the federal FLSA?
New York does not have a separate state statute governing time rounding, so employers in New York must follow the federal framework established under Title 29, Section 785.48 of the Code of Federal Regulations. New York’s Labor Law does impose its own requirements for wage records, pay stub detail, and wage payment frequency alongside FLSA compliance, but the FLSA standards represent the primary legal floor for time rounding protections in New York. In contrast to states like California, which have imposed stricter independent restrictions, New York workers’ rounding protections flow primarily from federal law.
How far back can I recover unpaid wages from illegal time rounding in New York?
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees can typically recover unpaid wages going back two years from the date a lawsuit is filed, with a three-year lookback available if the employer’s rounding practices were willful. New York’s Labor Law provides a significantly more favorable six-year statute of limitations for wage theft claims, which often allows New York employees to recover a larger amount of back wages than federal law alone would permit. An employment attorney can evaluate your situation to determine which law provides the most favorable recovery period.
What is the difference between illegal time rounding and time shaving?
Time rounding refers to adjusting clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest permitted increment, which is legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act when applied fairly in both directions. Time shaving, by contrast, refers to a deliberate practice of manually reducing recorded hours after employees have submitted them, to lower the wages an employer must pay. Both practices can violate the FLSA and New York Labor Law when they result in employees receiving less pay than they earned, but time shaving is generally viewed as more intentionally dishonest, making it easier to establish a willful violation and access the longer three-year federal lookback period.
Can employees file a class action lawsuit over illegal time rounding in New York?
Yes. Illegal time rounding is one of the most commonly litigated wage and hour issues and frequently affects an entire workforce in the same way, making it well-suited for collective or class action litigation. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, workers can bring a collective action in which similarly situated employees actively opt in to the case. Under New York Labor Law, a class action can proceed on behalf of all affected employees without requiring individual opt-ins, which can substantially expand the pool of claimants and resulting back pay awards.
Are salaried employees in New York protected against illegal time rounding, or does it only apply to hourly workers?
Time rounding concerns apply primarily to hourly, non-exempt employees because salaried, exempt employees are generally entitled to their full salary regardless of exact hours worked in a given day. However, if an employer has misclassified an employee as exempt when that person is legally entitled to hourly wages and overtime protections, illegal rounding practices could still cause that employee to lose wages. Employee misclassification is itself a wage and hour violation under New York law, and a combined misclassification and rounding claim can significantly increase the total damages available to affected workers.