Help Wanted: Is it legal not to pay for mandatory training?

DEAR CARRIE: During the local baseball season I worked for a catering company as a waitress in the ballpark suites. We had a mandatory Saturday orientation from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. But the company didn't pay us for that time. Is this legal? Supervisors reviewed requirements such as the dress code and how to set up suites. -- Foul Ball?

DEAR FOUL BALL: The company violated federal labor law when it didn't pay you for that time.

The law is pretty clear on that score: Time spent at a lecture, meeting or training program doesn't have to be paid if it meets all four of these criteria: it is held outside normal hours; it is voluntary; it is not job-related, and no other work was "concurrently performed."

The orientation failed to meet at least two of those because it was involuntary and job-related.

"Those two are the big ones," said Irv Miljoner, who heads the U.S. Labor Department's Long Island office.

The bottom line on your orientation: "It's viewed as compensable hours, which means paid for," Miljoner said. 

Click here for more on mandatory work events and pay.

DEAR CARRIE: After losing my job in October 2010, I received a severance package that included medical benefits until mid-February of this year.

In the meantime, I started a new job in November.

I didn't opt for my current employer's benefits at that time because I still had coverage under the severance agreement.

I called the new company's human relations department and explained my situation.

It said I should just contact the department when I needed to pick up my new employer's coverage.

The company, meanwhile, went through a computer-system changeover, and I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn't contact HR until April, two months after my severance benefits expired.

So now the new employer is refusing to cover me because I did not contact HR in February, when my old benefits ran out.

The reasoning is that any special accommodation for me would be unfair to other employees.

I am not asking the company to backdate the coverage. I am just asking it to start the benefits now.

I am a management employee.

If the entire company is allowed benefits, isn't it reverse discrimination not to offer me benefits? What are the labor laws in New York regarding medical and dental benefits? -- Un-Beneficial

DEAR UN-BENEFICIAL: New York State labor laws say very little about benefits because companies don't have to offer them, unless a union contract or employment agreement obligates them to do so.

Contracts aside, when employers offer benefits, they set the terms, as long as they don't discriminate.

Because companies have a lot of leeway in shaping their benefit plans, it may be a stretch to prove your employer discriminated against you unless you believe the bias is based on such things as gender, religion or race.

"The employer may opt to provide different terms to different employees, as long as the distinction is not based on membership in a protected class," said Ellen Storch, counsel at Kaufman Dolowich Voluck & Gonzo in Woodbury.

"For example, an employer may decide to provide more favorable terms to management than to rank-and-file employees," Storch said. "However, an employer may not provide more favorable terms to women, simply because of their gender."

The lapse in benefits may have been the determining factor here.

"Presumably, the company had explained to him that there was a policy / procedure requiring an employee to request insurance coverage prior to the expiration of previous coverage," Storch said.

If the benefits deadline wasn't clear, try pleading your case again with HR.

Click here for more on benefits and state labor law at www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/faq.shtm