Use of Sick Leave Is Ill-Advised

Q. It is my understanding that as an exempt employee I don’t have to use sick leave if I take two hours during my workday to go to the doctor. But if the appointment keeps me out of the office for four hours, then I use half a day of sick leave.

Is this correct procedure? No one notices that I work through my lunch hour on these days.

--S.N., North Hollywood

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A. I am not aware of any rules that would require you to use sick leave for absences of less than a day.

As an employee who is exempt from overtime pay requirements, you can’t have deductions taken from your salary because of variations in the quality or quantity of work performed. Absences of less than one day should not affect pay for that day.

However, absences of a day or more for personal reasons other than sickness or an accident can result in a deduction of a day’s pay.

Deductions also can be made for absences of a day or more for sickness or disability if there is a bona fide benefit plan that provides compensation for loss of salary in these circumstances.

If you make it a regular habit to miss partial days, your employer may form the opinion that you are slackening off, which could affect your job security or a chance for a pay raise or promotion.

--Don D. Sessions

Employee rights attorney

Mission Viejo

Employee Searches May Go Only So Far Legally

Q. Is there any law covering searches of employee handbags by management or security guards?

If management or security says they want to search the employee by touch, can they legally do this? Can they legally demand a total strip search?

--R.O., Glendale

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A. Wow. We moved from opening handbags to conducting strip searches in two sentences.

A handbag search probably would be permissible, whereas a search involving contact probably would not be permissible. A strip search is out of the question.

In California, there is a constitutional right to privacy. It is not absolute, however. The employee’s reasonable expectations of privacy are balanced against the employer’s legitimate interests in protecting its property.

The key to whether a handbag search would violate an employee’s right to privacy would be based in large part on whether the employee had advance notice of the employer’s policy on searching property, whether the search is as minimally intrusive as possible under the circumstances and whether the policy is applied uniformly to all similarly situated employees.

--Jo Tucker

Employment law attorney/

arbitrator

Morrison & Foerster

Office Move May Qualify One for Jobless Benefits

Q. Our company has told us that all departments are being moved to another city 40 miles away. I am not willing to add 90 minutes each way to my commute.

If I am unable to find another position by the time the move is scheduled, will I be eligible for unemployment benefits?

--Y.C., Los Angeles

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A. It’s not entirely clear.

If an employee leaves a job without “good cause,” he or she will be ineligible for unemployment benefits. The Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board uses a test of reasonableness in determining whether an employee who refuses to accept a transfer has good cause for leaving a job. There is no standard commuting distance beyond which an employee should not have to travel to accept a transfer.

Your claim for unemployment benefits might depend on the length of your current commute.

If it is a short one, an additional 40 miles may not be considered sufficient to justify your quitting, as people often drive such distances to work in Southern California. If your commute is already substantial, however, the added distance probably will be sufficient to qualify you for unemployment benefits if you decline the transfer.

--James J. McDonald Jr.

Attorney, Fisher & Phillips

Labor law instructor, UC Irvine

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If you have a question about an on-the-job situation, please mail it to Shop Talk, Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626; dictate it to (714) 966-7873; or e-mail it to shoptalk@latimes.com. Include your initials and hometown. The Shop Talk column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice. Recent Shop Talk columns are available at https://www.latimes.com