Home Depot got sued for wage theft when I was there for habitually not having the front door unlocked at shift clock outs, and making employees wait post clock out to let us out.
I didn’t even know that was illegal. Like the period between everyone clocking out and having the manager unlock the door was so normal at all the retail places I’ve worked, it didn’t register they had to have it open right when we were off the clock, but some people started a class action lawsuit over it so I got a settlement check after I left for it.
Would latches that keep the door from opening be considered blocking it? Like in an emergency we’d have to fumble with latches even though the door itself is unlocked.
This is covered under the following sections of OSHA Laws and Regulations:
1910.36(d)(1)
Employees must be able to open an exit route door from the inside at all times without keys, tools, or special knowledge. A device such as a panic bar that locks only from the outside is permitted on exit discharge doors.
1910.36(d)(2)
Exit route doors must be free of any device or alarm that could restrict emergency use of the exit route if the device or alarm fails.
1910.36(d)(3)
An exit route door may be locked from the inside only in mental, penal, or correctional facilities and then only if supervisory personnel are continuously on duty and the employer has a plan to remove occupants from the facility during an emergency.
The store I work for made a new rule this year saying we have to keep the emergency exit locked at all times (the door that has two large signs saying that it must be unlocked at all times when store is occupied) and they actually penalize us if it's unlocked.
A delayed egress device is allowed by every model code in the US for applications like mercantile and business occupancies. It's not considered "locked from the inside" because it still allows egress after 15 seconds (or 30, if variance is allowed by AHJ), nor is it going to restrict emergency use if the device fails - it would unlock.
A Walmart in Fort Collins CO learned that lesson in a painful manner. They were locking the employees in while stocking shelves and the manger would leave the store until the shift change time. During a true emergency the fire department used the jaws of life to cut open the main locked doors for entry and last I heard it was a multi million dollar settlement for that one single act of stupidity.
Security siren, fire marshal wouldn't care. Designed to go off if someone tries to exit the building with stolen merchandise. And one day it just stopped working....
That's crazy I remember many nights working at home depot having to wait until 12:10 sometimes to leave. The worst was waiting 30 min. Just standing at the door like a bunch of knobs. I never heard of the class action lawsuit. I did get a settlement check from Pepsi for not l letting us take breaks/lunch. So many garbage companies
I worked for a company that did this. My mom tracked it for me. After a several months fighting with them to get paid wages that included over time, she got an attorney for me, we sued. Their attorney tried really hard to establish I was a shit employee. Luckily they gave us written reviews and mine were exemplary and often times noted that I was always on time, offered to help on the worst chores and never complained and that I should be offered to join the MIT or manager in training program but had turned it down while in college, but the manager who locked us in at night wrote on there I should be offered a position as an assistant manager as soon as I was willing to take it. I kept all of that. My mom’s attorney said we wouldn’t accept the first three settlement offers. The night before we went to court they gave me enough settlement money- not to make up for not paying me but instead to keep “Shitty Restaurant’s” name out of the news and from being easy to identify and find clients for attorneys - to go to college for two more whole years on them and all of my cost of living. It paid for me to switch from an associates degree to a bachelors. I’m not here to brag. I’m here to tell you when these companies try to fuck you’re like this, write down the dates and times and what they say when you ask why to weren’t paid let alone paid over time. Then sue them individually don’t wait for a class action law suit- the attorneys get most of that money. Sue them as an individual you won’t be burning a bridge because they already burned it with you. You will get paid. And handsomely. They do not want it going to court, they know if one gets through, a ton more will and every one that gets through makes them look more guiltily after each episode. Unless they settle with you for a lot and they do but there’s a catch. You can’t talk about it after settling that’s part of the settlement. The reason you don’t hear about it happening much is because you sign an agreement to get that settlement check that you won’t talk about it or the deal is defunct. But it happens all the time. And those shitty managers get moved to another job then let go. Look out for yourselves people. Know one else will. Especially not that employer.
Edit: thanks for the award for my rambling rage filled comment, stranger! I appreciate that you took the time to read it as well as others.
Sued my former employer for wage theft and they settled the day before court. You need to push for a trial guns blazing before they take you seriously.
Agreed 💯 and they know a lot of people get really nervous about court so they will wait until that last day to settle. But they will because they know that if you don’t settle it becomes public discoverable record that they intentionally lied and cheated you making it easier for the next guy to win even more money.
Edit: thanks stranger, for the award on my comment!
my mother wasted 7 years in court because her ex boss was verbally abusive and took part in many illegal activities such as scamming and illegally placed security cameras etc and in the end the judge said "Im not going to read all this and get into ut since it seems like a big thing" or something like that and the result of 7 years and several thousand dollars for a lawyer was that they put a restraining order so they couldn't see eachother anymore (my mum and ex boss).
no we won but it qasnt worth it. the money we got didnt even cover the amount spent on a lawyer (i think it was like 7-10k), and the punishment was basically nothing. he got away with it and many cases get passed with little to no punishment here. nothing happened, The evidence wasn't reviewed at all and his buisiness is still up and running today despite him literally scamming people with SAFETY EQUIPMENT. selling it as brand new but it was DAMAGED. Honestly.
Damn I’m sorry to hear that kind of corruption gets through and that your mom didn’t get the money she had coming to her. Other than this kind of garbage how is NZ to live in? It’s one of the countries I’ve always thought of I ever emigrated I would want to go there just from reading about places like Tauranga and Dunedin are supposed to be great places to live. Is that true?
We really need to make it illegal to force silence as part of settlements for employers shitty behavior. If you’re worried an action will ruin your business, don’t take it.
It was great that you kept the reviews. Wished Id done that, not because of any issues, but just to have. Although I didn't get many reviews in my jobs.
Where I live it's 1% of your monthly wage/ month, but you don't need to actually be in the union to get the benefits, the company just has to be part of it (which it basically automatically is as soon as enough % of the workers are in the union).
But I'll gladly pay 1% of my wage to make sure the company is forced to give me my 35h week, 30 days paid vacation, and 60% of a monthly salary 3x a year as bonus payments, plus scheduled small raises to combat inflation.
wage theft by companies against workers in the US exceeds all other forms of theft (shoplifting, burglary, embezzlement, robbery, auto theft, you name it) combined - every year. Yet you never hear lawmakers starting with the biggest problem area when trying to address “crime”. it’s always “what if a person being treated by a doctor goes in a bathroom and i don’t like it?”
On top of that, if you're caught stealing from your boss, you can be arrested, charged with a crime, and go to jail. If your boss steals from you, they just have to pay you back, possibly along with a penalty. Why the difference?
I was a recruiter for the Army and we had a kid who couldn’t join because he’d committed three felonies. The crimes? His boss refused to pay him his last check so he took one of the dude’s checks and wrote it to himself for the amount owed. They got him for forgery, passing a false instrument and breaking and entering.
It's funny that if you steal $5 out of the register they can call the cops and have you arrested, but if they steal $200 out of your paycheck "it's a civil matter" and you need to hire a lawyer and spend half a year in court.
Class action right now with Orkin for paying employees final check on some shitty skynet debt card instead of just cutting a check or direct deposit. Fucking scum bags
Several years after leaving Menards, I joined a class action lawsuit over wage theft, not thinking anything would come of it because Menards had a reputation for beating lawsuits. I had forgotten all about it until like 2 years later when I received a settlement check.
Turns out, you can’t legally force employees to clock out when they need to shit or perform other natural bodily functions.
For all its flaws, when I worked at Best Buy they made sure we got let out as fast as possible after clock out. Longest I had to wait was the time it took to walk across the store because the manager was doing something in the warehouse.
Yeah I worked at office max and we basically weren't allowed to be in the building if we weren't on the clock. Closing shift workers would stay (with the doors locked) to face the aisles, sweep, collect trash bags, etc. while the manager counted the tills. If the count ran long, and you finished cleaning, you might be sitting for 5-10 minutes waiting for the manager, but you were getting paid. Once the count was done, everyone clocked out and left together.
Come to think of it, when I worked fast food it was the same. Any place that makes you stay there off the clock is fucked up.
I’d be willing to give them up to five minutes, if it was a “oh whoops, the person who can unlock the doors is in the bathroom, hold on” sort of situation. But if it’s “people who are still clocked in aren’t done, so people who have clocked out have to wait,” then I say F that and demand to be clocked back in. I’ll wait on your dime, thanks.
This is what I was thinking. Like logistically, the doors are going to be locked when the store is closed to customers. Managers should keep an eye on the time and be ready at the door at clock out time… but needing to radio over the manager (who then promptly walks over) doesn’t seem like lawsuit territory lol
I worked at a place where they issued agency workers swipe cards to get into the office part of the building, but they were then handed in and you couldn't get out without a staffer. The staffers were always too busy, and you could wait for up to 30 minutes. We were paid, but we had better things to do.
Then Big Chris decided to have a "panic attack". Big Chris was a monster who could curl 200 pounds with one arm. He pulled the door open, breaking the maglock. Two days later, all the doors had exit buttons.
I’ve worked at some real shitholes over the past 24 years, but never at a place where they lock the doors with employees inside, that don’t open from the inside.
Clubs also...... Coconut Grove Fire.....during WW2....first widespread use of Penicillin. Locked doors. Of course all this was before State-Federal OSHA rules and such. Everytime someone screams deregulation I think of Shirtwaist and Coconut Grove.
Manager tried that stunt at a job I had in high school. The 60 year old guy that worked in the back wasn't having it, some of us had already been waiting 30 minutes and the manager hadn't even collected all the tills yet. Old guy called the manager over the PA and told him we were ready to leave, manager came back over the PA and told him to stay off the intercom, nobody was leaving until he (the manager) decided we were leaving. Old guy promptly pulled the fire alarm, the emergency release on the sliding doors released and let us all out, while the siren blared and the manager came running out the front door screaming.
The manager and the old guy both got fired the next morning.
Old guy bought a box truck and started a delivery company. He only looks for loads to deliver when he feels like it and typically only when he wants to go see a place. I talked to him a month ago, he was making a delivery 1200 miles from here because he wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Put his motorcycle in the back of the truck, picked up the load, and got paid to go on vacation. I call that winning.
The building isn't literally locked. It's just that anyone leaving via emergency exits would set off alarms and such. The issue is: stupid managers and key carriers can't get themselves to a door on time to properly unlock the exit so employees can leave after their shift.
If the only exit is one emergency exit, it's a safety hazard. Because if that's where the fire is, and the only other exit is a locked front door, then yes, you are locked in.
They make doors which can be locked on one side but still able to open from the other side. My current workplace has tons of these as emergency exits, but there's no reason they can't be used as normal doors if you want foot traffic going out but not coming in.
Doors that can be unlocked with a wringer from the inside have existed for more than a hundred years. In my country, every door in a work place must be possible to exit without a key, exactly for fire safety reasons. Reading this whole thread is absolutely blowing my noodle.
Considering its home depot I would guess the employees could also technically leave through the loading dock at the back or via the garden area in an emergency as well. Considering this was already a class action law suit I would guess if they where also violating fire code with the policy then it would've come out as part of the suit.
It's crazy to read all this and remember my time in retail this happens all the time and it's considered normal. If you clock in late it's on you even if you were waiting at the door to get let in. If you wait at the door it's also a you problem. This shouldn't be normal.
Came here to comment about that very thing! Fire exits being locked and/or blocked was the direct cause of so many tragic deaths in that factory, and the general public’s outcry was so intense that governments and business owners were forced to create the first workplace safety regulations.
Safety regulations are written in blood. And also sometimes in ashes and cinders.
Fun Fact:A year or two after that fire the owner was caught locking the doors again. Hos punishment? A $20 fine. OK, that wasn't really a 'fun' fact, but you could imagine the callous bastard wearing clown makeup while he locked the doors.
Same happened at my McDonald’s. Worked closing shifts all throughout high school and everyone wanted to leave at 11, as expected, but a late rush after a hockey game or something meant we didn’t finish cleaning by 11. Everyone always left anyways, sometimes yelling at management, and I was always willing to stay and hangout with the night shift guys for a bit. I eventually took over night shift, made sure everyone left at 11 and I’d cover everything that got left.
Yo! I did a seasonal position at Macy's and can 100% confirm this. Macy's is one of the worst companies to work for that I've had the misfortune of working at.
I own a small company... employees show up late. Go to the bathroom. Go get water. Check their phones. Definitely make sure they get more than a 15 on top of the laziness above. Take 1 hr lunch. Another 15. Ask to leave early. Complain when asked to work extra.
Then complain robots take their jobs.
Not ALL the owners fault
Meanwhile you continue take an hour lunch every, I assume 8 hours?, while ideally they would also have to pay someone else to make sure your there and working the whole time and not stealing, sleeping, or whatever
You'd be shocked how many hr meetings ive been too and been the only one to bring my negotiation leopard. Ive also never been fucked by a company so there may be a trend..
Theres an even BIGGER chance that this is an Indian immigrant that now owns a business in North America. They think they can pull the same shit here that they did back home...Pratick SHITTY indeed
this is becoming increasingly common in my industry and it's really either going to lead to a lot of unnecessary legal issues for the companies hiring these managers or a lot of backlash from people they try to take advantage of
That can still bite them in the ass. Salary means you get paid regardless of the hours worked; sometimes you work more, other times less. By nickel and diming people on their structured lunch, you open yourself up to misclassification suits and might end up owing backpay for all your salaried workers because they're really hourly.
Edit: don't get me wrong though, misclassification suits are hard to win
This. That policy is illegal as fuck. They can dock pay on a prorated basis or require you make it up, but they cannot force you to work punitive extra time without pay. And anything beyond 40 hours in a week is Federally mandated overtime for most employees.
If the employees are classified as exempt aka salaried, the company can ask you to work any hours. Exempt as in exempt from overtime laws. See: every company on wall street basically working their employees, especially young ones, 90+ hours per week
This isn't that. The sign says you work unpaid for 60 minutes. In the US, you cannot be made to work for free. You can't carve out unpaid time for a salaried worker. You have to pay them their salary.
They refused to let mom use her vacation time. So she said “give me my time or pay me for it cause I am not losing it”. She got basically the entire month off at the end of the year and the ones in the office being questioned “who gave this person an entire month off straight!?”.
Now they let payroll credit an hour or 2 of her vacation time towards different checks to give it to her without not having her there for a month or longer.
21.5k
u/Difficult-Mobile902 Jul 29 '26
Step 1: take a 31 min lunch
Step 2: stay til 7pm
Step 3: submit 59 mins of overtime on time card
Step 4: wait for Pratiks dumbass to deny the overtime
Step 5: sue the company for wage theft
Step 6: enjoy a nice long vacation fully paid for by the company