Can my company force me to use PTO even though I have worked 40 hours (or more) in a given week?

[cinnard]

I work as a salaried employee at a consulting company. Although a normal work week is 40 hr/week, I tend to work more than that, sometimes up to 45-50 hr/week.

Let's say that I work 40 hours from Monday through Thursday. My company will force me to take 8 hours of PTO (paid time off) if I want to take Friday off, even though I have worked the necessary hours for them.

Example:

M T W Th F
10 10 10 10 0 - Work
0 0 0 0 8 - PTO

My question is whether this is a potential labor law violation for the states of Maryland, DC, and/or Virginia, since I have worked the necessary hours I have obligated to work, yet am obligated by company policy to use my PTO (vacation time) since I will not be in the office on Friday.

I find myself in this situation since I regularly work over 40 hr/week, have over 100% utilization as defined by company accounting, yet still have to use PTO (which is already below that of competing companies).

[luther]

if you are salary "exempt" and miss a full day for personal reasons the employer can deduct that day from your wages so if you want to be paid for 5 days they can require you to use the PTO time.....
to see when an exempt employees wages may be reduced for absenteeism see this link:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17g_salary.pdf

[spengler]

If you are salary and required to work five days a week, then you can't squeeze all the hours into four days and take a three day weekend. If you ask, they might allow it, but they do not have to.

[ahanu]

YES the policy is legal....
'Sarah Good' nailed it .....