(I should start off by noting that I’m in Ontario, Canada, so that I can receive advice/opinions relative to Ontario employment/labour laws.)
I’m an assistant manager at 7-Eleven. I’m aware that my manager has been falsifying timecards to reduce the number of hours worked, basically stealing from employees. Most of the time it’s by a small amount, 10-20 minutes here and there, obviously still a wrong (and illegal) thing to do but not as bad as what I’m about to get to.
A little bit to know before we get to the major wage theft: We typically receive our truck shipments during the night shift, so those night shift employees specifically are best trained on how to check-in, verify, and put away those deliveries. All employees have a general knowledge of checking in deliveries, but these very large deliveries can be complicated and difficult to check in properly when shortages arise (which is often), so night shift employees with prior experience are truly best suited to handle them.
On a delivery night one of our night shift guys happened to arrive at work very early, and he was just hanging out in the staff room alone killing time before his shift. Truck ended up arriving unusually early that evening, and the afternoon shift employees who were working weren’t the strongest employees, so he clocked in early and started working on the delivery. He had clocked in roughly 1.5 hours early.
The time theft: My manager was reviewing payroll prior to approval and asked if I knew why the employee had clocked in so early that night, and I explained what I just did in the prior paragraph. Manager said that he was not authorized to clock in early so he was going to change his time card to the standard clock-in time for the night shift (reducing his hours worked by -1.5hrs). I told him I understood where he was coming from and that the employee should have texted/called the manager for permission to start early to handle the delivery, but it seems very unethical and likely illegal to alter his time card to subtract time that he spent working. Manager said that the employee is in the wrong in this situation for working unauthorized hours and that he was changing the time card, and that was the end of the discussion.
I’ve tried googling falsification of employee time cards in relation to wage theft and working unauthorized hours in Ontario, but I’m not finding the information I’m looking for. Who’s more at fault here, my manager or the night shift guy? And am I correct to think that what my manager did in this specific instance is 100% illegal despite the employee’s early clock-in being unauthorized??