Modern life is full of meetings. This is especially true in the workplace, where many employers require regular workers to attend regular meetings to discuss work status, company rules, safety issues, or just to make sure everyone is on the same page. Sometimes, these meetings take place just before, or just after, the normal workday. Time spent in a meeting is time spent working. If employees are requires to attend meetings that occur while they are off the clock, they may have a claim for unpaid wages or overtime.
The Department of Labor states its official position states on its website: “Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time only if four criteria are met, namely: it is outside normal hours, it is voluntary, not job related, and no other work is concurrently performed.” (I have added the bold type to make it easier to read). If any of these four requirements is not met, the employees must be paid. In short, the vast majority of corporate meetings must be treated as paid time.
Most obviously, safety meetings and other workplace meetings are usually not “voluntary.” They are mandatory. And, as the federal regulations note, even if the meeting is not strictly mandatory, if the “employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance,” it counts as mandatory.
Second, they are almost always job related, in that the topics discussed are specifically applicable to the company’s current jobs. While the meetings may or may not be held during normal working hours, that is irrelevant in most cases because the meeting is compensatory if all of the four criteria are met. And finally, if any other work is performed during the meetings, the company must pay.
Nevertheless, some companies try to treat safety meetings and other mandatory meetings as unpaid time. While one unpaid meeting may not seem like much, the lost time adds up over the months and years.
If you believe your company has been unlawfully refusing to pay for safety meetings or similar job-related meetings, click here to contact New Orleans overtime lawyer Charles Stiegler today, or call now at (504) 267-0777. The consultation is free.