Hey all.
Long time lurker here with many a story to tell.
Today's story is from my 19 y/o daughter. She began working for a nationwide chain daycare here in the US. She's no stranger to children being the oldest of four and having several babysitting and nannying gigs for the last few years. She was just hired in August and has been dealing with making minimum wage and being severely understaffed.
For anyone who doesn't know, daycare centers must comply with all federal regulations on trainings. There are promotion and role related trainings as well not state or federally required, but required by the organization as a part of providing quality child care in a competitive industry.
I'm not ignorant when it comes to labor laws. I'm an Industrial Organizational Psychologist which requires extensive knowledge of federal laws and robust ethical compliance training. So, when she came to me one Friday night complaining about training she was required to do outside of work, I made sure to have her log the time spent so she would get paid.
When she addressed her director, she told my daughter that she would look into it. Later that day she sent the below email. As far as I can tell from interpreting the FLSA, the following four criteria must be met in order to be exempt from payment:
- The training must be voluntary.
- The training must take place outside of normal work hours.
- The training should not be directly related to the performance of the employee's job.
- No work should be performed during the training.
I'm 99% sure that 1 and 3 are definite no's regardless of whether the training is from the state or center.
I'm posting here to see if any of you have similar stories or advice to share. I'm thinking of posting to r/legaladvice for tips as well. If this is illegal, they have written into their handbooks and it's much bigger than just this one center.
The training was only three hours and she makes $13/hr. This is bigger than the $39 and we both want to make sure they can't exploit anyone else or steal their personal time.
