QLD Employment Law - Lose Minutes of Pay for Being Late - Legal?

[Duane]

Okay, so I work for a retail company and usually the way it's been for the last two years of me being there is if you are late for however long, we usually just work that extra time. So if I was 10 minutes late, I would work and extra 10 minutes and everything would be fine.

However, now the company is implementing a new computer system where basically we have to clock in when we arrive and then clock out when we finish for the day. If we clock in even one minute late we are docked 15 minutes of pay. Nothing has been said about working extra time.

One instance I clicked on at 8:31 and my start time was 8:30. I lost 15 minutes of pay. I ended up clocking off almost 30 minutes past my finish time because it was quite busy but the system still paid me my rostered time.

I called the Fair Work Australia and the lady gave me absolutely no answer and she basically had no clue and said to work it out with the employer.

Is docking pay like this even legal under Employment Law? If I am late and lose 15 minutes pay, does that mean I don't have to start for another 15 minutes seeing as I'm not getting paid for that time? It wouldn't even make sense if I am 5 minutes late and lose 15 minutes pay and have to make up 15 more minutes of time... To me it sounds like time theft.

 

[Michael T]

How did you go with your employer? Sorry you didn't have much luck with Fair Work - did you call them up again to try for someone else who might have a view to share? I suppose you could argue that if you're going to get docked 15 minutes, then you're not going to work during those 15 minutes.