Help Wanted: Time-sheet rigging is a no-no

Altering the records makes the underpayment seem like "a willful violation," Miljoner said, and if the company ever faced an audit and legal action from the Labor Department, it could be on the hook for double payments of back wages and stiffer penalties.

"We take a dim view of violations that are so clearly willful," Miljoner said. "And falsification of records is a very serious violation."

In addition, depending on how much your son earned an hour with all the extra time factored in, the company could face minimum-wage violations. The federal and New York State minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

And if the company is deducting for lunch breaks not taken, that's yet another underpayment violation. And New York State law requires employees who work more than six hours a day to get at least a half-hour lunch break.

The tutorial easily fails to meet at least two criteria: It isn't voluntary, and it is job-related, so she has to be paid for the time.

Whether she should be paid for the blood tests and medical screening hinges on if she is already considered an employee of the new company, Miljoner of the Labor Department said.

"If so, she has to be paid," he said.

It's uncommon to find a registered nurse who is treated as an hourly employee, Miljoner said. Registered nurses fall into the professional category because of their education and the nature of their work, and as such they are usually salaried and exempt from overtime or even minimum wage rules. In other words, employers don't have to pay exempt registered nurses for all the hours they work.

But when they are treated as hourly employees, they have to be paid for all their work hours and have to earn overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

For more on what constitutes hours worked, go to http://1.usa.gov/o3pznA; for more on registered nurses and labor laws, go to http://1.usa.gov/qQ1knK.