Can My Job Only Pay Me For 8 Hours Instead Of 9 Because Of Daylight Saving Time?

A man says that he worked on Sunday, and, because of daylight saving time, his boss only wants to pay him for 8 hours instead of the 9 he worked. Is this legal?

On Sunday, we all rolled our clocks back an hour. Redditor KingSkeeze says that his boss’s rationale is it all will work out in the wash. In March, when daylight saving time begins, the workers will get paid for 8 hours when they only worked 7, his boss said. Guess it has something to do with what’s convenient for the boss in terms of schedule tracking.

Wouldn’t you know it, the US Department of Labor has a special advisory for daylight saving time hourly compensation. They say that employers have to pay workers for actual time worked, regardless of clock hands moving forward or backward. “The FLSA [Fair Labor Standards Act] requires that employees must be credited with all of the hours actually worked,” says their website.

For example, “On the Sunday that Daylight Savings Time ends at 2:00 a.m., the employee works the hour from 1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. twice because at 2:00 a.m. all of the clocks are turned back to 1:00 a.m. Thus, on this day the employee worked 9 hours, even though the schedule only reflected 8 hours.”

Perhaps an idea is to print out that advisory and show it to the boss and say, “Hey, I double-checked on it, and it turns out Federal Law says that we get paid for actual time worked, not what the clock says. I just wanted to make sure you knew about it so that we’re all in compliance.”

FLSA Hours Worked Advisor: Daylight Savings Time [US Department of Labor]
Is my job legally allowed to do this? [self.AskReddit] (Thanks to simonvii!)

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