On September 27, 2013, Sommers Schwartz filed suit against Quincy Street, Inc., a Michigan manufacturer of meat products, seeking damages for unpaid wages due to illegal time-rounding practices. The lawsuit alleges that Quincy Street’s policy of time rounding violated the law because it almost exclusively benefitted the employer. According to the complaint, Quincy Street’s implementation of this policy resulted in significant amounts of unpaid wages per year for each affected employee.

Time rounding is a common practice by which employers round hourly employees’ starting times and stopping times to the nearest five minutes, tenth of an hour, or quarter of an hour. Federal regulations permit this practice only when “it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.”  29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b) (2012).

If you are an hourly employee and suspect that you are not being properly paid because of your employer’s policy of time rounding, contact the attorneys of Sommers Schwartz for a free consultation.