Conundrum

Sometimes its hard to tell who is the player and who is getting played. An 8 year employee of Target claims his discharge was because he complained about not receiving uninterrupted breaks. Under federal wage hour laws employees who are called back to duty during a supposed break are entitled to compensation for the break which is interrupted. The federal lawsuit claims retaliation for complaints about breaks being interrupted in this manner is the real motivation for the discharge.  The irony is his discharge was ostensibly because he worked through a lunch break off the clock. Many employers have a policy preventing employees from doing just that. The basic reason for the policy is to discourage unauthorized work which may lead to overtime. If the employee works, he is entitled to compensation under the FLSA, even when the work was unauthorized and in violation of company policy. So the employer's remedy is limited to discipline for violating the policy. The employer may not refuse to pay the employee. One interesting fact in this case is the time clock prevented an employee from clocking back in within 30 minutes of clocking out. While one can understand the employers objective, this approach likely will result in the trier of fact assuming the employer's time clock does not accurately reflect time worked