Hello. I work as an inspector for a car auction. I live in Bensonhurst, but I travel to dealerships in all 5 boroughs but the two guys on my team that were in the Bronx/Yonkers quit so my boss has been sending me to the Bronx/Yonkers/New Rochelle 2 to 3 times a week. He schedules me to arrive at 9am meaning I have to leave my apartment at around 7:30.

As per my company guidelines in regards to timekeeping (copy pasted directly from our timekeeping page in our employee manual):

"Clock-In occurs when VCI’s leave to head directly to their first dealership."

In training they told us that we clock in when we leave our door and start driving to our first dealership. So in my case, when I'm working in the Bronx/Yonkers/etc I clock in usually at 7:30am to 7:45am.

Now here's where my issue is. It says that if we are more then 1hr away from our residence we are allowed to stay on the clock. The exact wording (again copy and pasted from our handbook):

"VCI’s clock out when they leave their last dealership. The only exception to this is if true drive time home exceeds one hour. True drive time is defined as normal driving conditions. If normal drive time home is 15 minutes but a traffic jam causes the drive to take over an hour, the VCI should not be on the clock."

It always takes me well over an hour to get home from the dealerships I travel to when I head that far north. Somtimes I can get home in 1hr15mins other times it's taken me up to 2hrs to get home.

I always stay on the clock when it takes me >1hr to drive home. However I have noticed that my boss has started edited my time sheets. Last week I logged 47.5 hours and he reduced it to 43.5 hours. Losing 4 hours of OT.

The only reason why I'm wondering if I have a case is because it does state that traffic jams are not considered 'true drive time'. But that raises the question, what is 'true drive time'? There is always traffic. Literally always. It is impossible to get from Bensonhurst in Brooklyn to Williamsbridge in the Bronx in under an hour except at the very early hours of the morning like 3/4am.

I don't want to go to HR because HR will snitch on me to my boss, and then my boss will 100% be vindictive as fuck and get me fired. I would rather talk to someone at the Department of Labor and see if I have a case. I have collected evidence of my timesheet being changed, and have filmed every time I have clocked in and clocked out in accordance to our company's policies for the past 2 weeks now. I just need to know how to contact someone and if it is worth it at all.

If anyone can help me I would appreciate it. Thank you.