Boss retroactively editing paycheck
employment attorney Indiana Jul 23, 2026
Location: Indiana, USA I'm an hourly employee at a small business. I've worked there for just over a year. Sometime around the 2nd week I was there, the CEO of the company let me know he didn't "mandate that I take my lunch break". In his own words: "I don't work with my mouth, so it's not an issue". So ever since, I haven't been clocking out, and been working through my lunch daily, eating sparsely throughout the day, sometimes taking a meal to my desk, but always working even while eating. Until today, the newly oppointed "Operations Manager" (not sure if that's actually his title, but it's the function he serves) pulled me into the conference room to tell me, that "We reviewed your time cards and noticed that you haven't been clocking out for lunches." I asked who "we" was, he said "oh just me". So I explained the deal I had with the CEO and that it had been going on for almost my entire employment. He didn't seem to believe me and went on to say I would be required to take my lunches from now on and that he would be adjusting my hours from the past 2 weeks to reflect my new policy. I asked him to clarify, and he told me I would have time taken off my time card to account for lunches. When I tried to explain my deal again and that I had been working through those hours, the OM said he would check with the CEO, and get back to me on what would happen. After the meeting I decided to talk directly to the CEO, to get some clarification. Unfortunately, he left for a trip this morning and won't be back until next month. When writing an email to him, the OM came back into my office, and told me "I've spoken with the CEO, everything stands." Checking my punches later it on my app seems he had subtracted about about 3.5 hours from my timecard. All of this was very frustrating to me, so I asked the OM to send me an email to me, covering everything we talked about, just so I had it in writing just so a situation like this never happens again and everyone is clear on when and how i am working. After reminding him once more, I never received an email. I'm also not the only employee this is happening to, the only other hourly employee who's been there as long as I have also had a similar deal, and had the same talk with the OM. So now I'm just suspicious, is any of this a legal issue?
