Employer Garnishing Wages

[mamaport]

My question involves business law in the state of: Missouri
A young man, friend of the family, works for a local restaurant. The other night while the manager was out the young people running the restaurant decided to turn out the open sign 45 mins early. The manager is now threatening to garnish the possible wages that may have occurred during that 45 mins from from his wages. Is this even remotely legal?

[Betty3]

I assume these are probably hourly non-exempt employees. If so, they have to be paid for all hours worked but they can be disciplined up to & including being fired for what they did. If they closed early (turned off the open sign) & did no work (such as washing dishes for example) during that remaining time (45 min.), they do not have to be paid for that 45 minutes. Non-exmept employees only have to be paid for time actually worked. They are lucky they didn't get fired.

[PattyPA]

BTW, just to pick a nit, this is not a "garnishment". A garnishment is an order from the court to withhold from wages paid to satisfy a creditor debt.