Required Training - To Pay or not to Pay

I might be a little late on this one...But I bring up a very good point. Actually, I was told through the grape vine that this article was in the paper and that I should take a close look. If you read the whole article you will notice an issue which hits close to home for Firefighters. There have been occasions where Firefighters, of all different rank, have been denied overtime for training that they are required to obtain and attend. Well I think that the comment by Bayard Harris speaks volumes. If you are told you HAVE to obtain a certain certification or that you HAVE to attend training, I suggest that you DEMAND to get paid. Of course, you shouldn't have to demand anything. Paying you to attend training that is required should not be a problem in the first place. But that is just my take on it. What does your department do?


roanoke.com - New River Valley Current-Student wins lawsuit against tanning salon:

Although she'd been promised 20 hours of work a week and complimentary tans, Bean said she was told that she'd get 18 hours, and that she wouldn't be paid for her training time because she had received free tans.

"Our services are not free any more than we'd expect her labor to be free," Adkins told The Roanoke Times.

Failing to pay employees for training in the workplace is almost always a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, said Bayard Harris, a labor and employment lawyer who also teaches workplace issues at Roanoke College.

If it was voluntary education, that might be a different story, but, Harris said, "It's hard to imagine that kind of educational opportunity in a tanning salon." (Read More)