Human Resource Blog

Attendance Deductions

	Compensation
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Is it legal in Michigan for an employer to automatically deduct a 1/2 hour lunch period from an employee’s time each day? The employee does not have to punch in or out the timeclock automatically does it. The company believes that it is the employee’s responsibility to come the supervisor if he/she did not get the full 1/2 uninterrupted lunch. However, the company also knows that in certain departments the employees are not allowed to leave the department for coverage purposes.

Under both federal and Michigan law, an employer must pay workers for all the time that they work. The employer is also legally required to keep accurate records of the hours that employees work. Many employers do set up their payroll systems to automatically deduct a half hour or one hour meal break from workers salaries. However, when the employees are not actually receiving the breaks, this is illegal. Just ask Wal-mart. The retail giant recently paid more than $10 million to employees in back wages, because breaks were being automatically deducted from the employee\\\’s checks, when in fact the employees were not able to take the breaks.

When an employee usually takes a break, it is reasonable to deduct the break automatically and require the worker to report any exceptions to his or her supervisor. (Many companies would discipline or terminate an employee who regularly had time for a break, but did not take it.)

It is possible that the question means that the employees are permitted to take an uninterrupted meal break longer than 20 minutes, but must remain at or near their work stations. As long as the employee is completely relieved of all duties, such a break can legitimately be unpaid. However, if the employee must be available for work (for example, to answer the phone if it rings) then the break must be paid — even if the phone does not ring and the break is uninterrupted.

However, when there is an entire department that cannot take meal breaks because of the nature of the work, and the company continues to automatically deduct break time, that suggests fraud or at least incompetence on the company\\\’s part. If one of the employees reported this problem to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth or the US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, the employer would likely have a difficult time defending this policy. The agency would investigate the complaint, and the employer would probably be required to pay back wages to the workers.