My partner is employed in Rhode Island. The company he is employed for has done a lot of things I consider shady at best, and many that I think are illegal.

The issue at hand is: yesterday, he was approached by his direct manager to stay late for a project. "Unpaid, of course." Was the language he used. Today, my partner was going to leave work early, as is typical for people who work extra time. However he was approached again by his manager a few minutes ago to inform him that he should stay his normal hours, to "avoid having to talk to the owner".

The owner of this company is known to scream at employees for leaving work early. This company has also edited employee timecards if they are submitted with any time above 40 hours, meaning no one is paid overtime when they have worked it. It seems they understand this is an issue, because they refuse to have this in writing. My partner has strategically tried to email his managers to mention his timecard is above 40, and ask for clarification on their request to change it, and someone will directly approach him to reply, preventing him from having any paper trail. All we have is my partner emailing them afterward confirming that the changes were made by their request.

We are moving this summer, so he won't be there much longer. But he has been for the past 2 years with this being a pattern. Would this even be a labor violation, despite the fact that we can't get anything on paper?