Your Job And Jury Duty
I recently came across an entertaining article in the New York Daily News about a Manhattan school teacher that faked jury duty obligations to score free vacation days. Clever? Sure. Illegal? Of course. The way she got caught was perfectly ironic: poor spelling on the fake note from the court. Spelling basic words like trial, manager and cited wrong (trail, manger and sited respectively) was an easy clue for the school principal to catch the forgery.
Jury duty is your civic duty and as a New York employee, I found this article as a good chance to remind employees of the rights have when they actually serve on a jury. With more than half a million jurors serving in the state of New York every year, this is certainly something that will likely come up multiple times throughout the course of your professional career.
The New York court system has a great guide dedicated to employment issues relating to jury duty. Here’s some of the top frequently asked questions:
• Who Pays? In New York, the going rate if $40 per day of jury service. Additionally, employers are highly encouraged to pay an employee’s wages while reporting for service. Although this is not a requirement, the pay should not be considered sick or vacation time but an independent paid obligation.
• Do part-time or temporary employees get paid? The answer to this is basically the same as for full-time employees (see above). If you are a temporary employee then it is the temp agency and not the company you are staffed at that you would need to contact.
• Do employers have to let employees serve? The answer to this question is a resounding yes. Criminal penalties will be attached to any employer who says otherwise. Additionally, an employer cannot force an employee to make up time or work on nonscheduled days as a resulting of their jury service.
Oh and for those of you wondering, the 61-year-old teacher resigned from her position with the school and was ordered to pay $3,374.88 in salary she was paid while not serving on jury duty.
