Automatic Lunch Deductions
So, for my newish job, which I have been at since about the beginning of January, I thought they did automatic meal break deductions of 30 minutes for shifts over 5 hours. Having learned of the policy by word of mouth rather than an official memo in writing, I mistakenly believed these time deductions took place at five hours or greater. They, in fact, we’re deducted after four hours. With most of my shifts being 4.5 hours, I have missed the self-reporting “no lunch” option on our clocking system for the majority of my shifts, effectively losing about 6 hours of pay each pay period that I have worked here, because of my misunderstanding.
Because I was the one who self-reported incorrectly, I’d rather resolve this without legal assistance, but I would like to know if I would be justified/backed by policy in fighting for backpay for the 1000s of dollars lost in lunches I never actually took (who takes a 30 minute break on a four hour shift, anyways?) or if I’m just SOL for all that money because I didn’t know at what point the deductions were made.
I didn’t realize the error until I put in a lot of OT on a particular check (I am part time), and when almost all of it was missing, the clockings:pay ratio was far enough off for me to notice what was up and finally figure out where the pay went missing. Since I’m PT, the 2-3 hours per week had a dollar amount small enough to go unnoticed-I had attributed the difference to tax deductions or similar. Although, that does add up after six months of the same mistake.
Does anyone know where I can find the actual federal policy on this matter? Thanks for any help.
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