The workday doesn’t always end when the clock says it does… especially if your employer decides otherwise.

An hourly grocery store employee started keeping track of the minutes spent completing mandatory closing tasks after noticing paychecks no longer reflected the extra time. Even though workers couldn’t leave until supervisors approved the nightly checklist, management insisted those unpaid minutes were simply part of the job, leaving the employee questioning whether the practice was even legal.

When it comes to grocery stores, I understand that certain cleaning procedures need to be done before the store closes. Cleaning, putting away fresh produce, taking the trash… those are important things that need to be taken care of, especially in a place where food is being manipulated. That being said, I don’t think it should be after the closing time and force the employees to stay longer than they should.

The problem here is the way that the manager handled the situation. For starters, when they decided to start taking care of these things before the store closes, the manager demanded that these things should be done when customers are out of the building, and not before they leave. This forces them to stay some extra minutes, which are not included in their paycheck, nor in their contract. So, it’s an interpretation from the boss…

Since those duties are important and cannot be forgotten, the problem can be solved with one minor change: updating the contract and the salary so the employees can still get paid for the minutes they stay to work on this. According to the OP’s calculation, there are 68 extra minutes per week they are working… that’s more than an hour per week. If the boss were a bit more mindful and could pay them for this, then the problem is solved and done.