Is it legal for my employer to round my time clock?
I'm in New York state. My job asks us to come in up to 7 minutes early and clock out up to 7 minutes late. Turns out both those 7 minutes are not included in our time card and are automatically rounded (to the nearest 15 min interval) so that we are not paid for either of those times. (e.g., clock in at 7:55am, clock out at 4:07pm. they would round it to 8 and 4, meaning 12 minutes of your labor goes unpaid). No matter who shows up early or late, someone is losing wages due to this rounding policy. I did the math and for 2025 I lost about 22 hours of paid labor due to rounded wages. I was unaware of this rounding rule until today. Additionally, one day I clocked out at 8:09am and I caught my boss changing my time clock to 8:07am (which would then be rounded to 8am meaning I wouldn't get paid for that time). I called him out and he changed it back. but point being that this time card rounding policy is constantly taking wages away from workers. Is this legal? How are they getting away with this?
EDIT: I forgot to mention that we are penalized if we clock in 8 minutes early or clock out 8 minutes late since our company doesn't want to pay us overtime (and they've told us this many times). They will give you an occurrence each time you clock in 8 minutes early/clock out 8 minutes late. If you get enough occurrences they will fire you.