My question involves employment and labor law for the state of: Wisconsin
At my job there are 7 workers who all attend the same college. I am the only one in the group that attends classes online rather than attending the physical college building. I did this so that my work schedule could remain open, as I figured they will all fight over the afternoon hours and I do not have to.
When I was originally hired I asked if it was FT and was told I'd probably be FT within a month. For the first couple of months I was, indeed, FT because it was right before our once-a-year sale that we do in the fall. Once that sale ended and we didn't get as much business I also saw my hours decline, to about 24hrs average a week. Thankfully I have two jobs (the other one is only 9hrs though) so I was able to slightly offset this decline and I didn't complain much.
I have now been with the company for over a year, and I am in my second year of college. Every single other college student that works there is allowed to come into work 1-2hrs late due to classes. A couple of days ago I asked if I could go home early a couple of hours for an test. Originally he was thinking about it, but as it started to near the time I wanted to leave I asked the manager again and he got mad and gave me a project to do that would take me the rest of my normal shift to complete. I told him if I did it I wouldn't be able to leave early, and he said he just did it to "Get you off my ass so you stop bugging me." The boss was still there, so I went to him to complain and he also got mad. He told me that if "You are scheduled to work and there is stuff to do you need to stay, but fine, go ahead and LEAVE, just GO, and I'll consider this when I do your next schedule!"
The next day, which was the day for the boss to do the new schedule, I only had 2 days. Mind you, I ended up staying for the rest of my shift the day prior because I didn't want to risk losing hours. I approached him and asked if I could possibly get just one more day, and he proceeded to tell me "no, the schedule is complete and if you don't want hours I'll give them to those that do." So now people who were just hired within the past couple months have 4-5 days, and I got my hours cut. I explained to him I only wanted to leave so I could work on a test, I still want hours, and that it isn't fair the other college students can come in late due to college, but I can't leave early due to college.
He told me his wife attended online courses once, and the difference is they HAVE to be up at the college at a specific time, while I can work on my stuff on my own time. This still doesn't make sense to me, because even though I study on my own time I am still in college like they are and still have to do homework/tests. He also told me I shouldn't wait until the last minute to do my college stuff. I already have a chapter read that I don't have to have read for another 1.5 weeks! It was for a TEST! That particular test was only open for that one day, I wasn't procrastinating until the last minute to do it.
Then he proceeded to tell me how much the company works around my schedule and always lets me go early when I need to for my other job, and they give me the days I request off when I want them off, even if it is during a time when they refuse to let people have days off (which are entire 1-2 week blocks around holidays so we cannot take off, say, November 20th, just because it is in the same week Thanksgiving is in). I told him I only ask off the Mon and Weds I have scheduled every week for the other job, and technically on Mon I can work the 6am-2pm shift since I don't start the other job until 3, which he did give me for awhile until he hired a new employee and gave that shift to them. Again I didn't complain much because the 6am shift was my least favorite to work. It has been a few months now since I asked to leave early for the sake of making it to my other job, and then it is usually only because he forgets I work my other job and schedules me 8-4, which conflicts with the 3pm shift, and he knows I am unavailable for that shift unless I leave 2hrs early at 2pm.
Any other time I ask to leave early it is because we have completed our work and there is nothing else to do. My other coworkers who work the morning shifts also leave early. The normal 6-2 employee, during winter when it is slower, will leave between 12pm-1pm, at least 1-2hrs early, almost every day. We all hate standing around with nothing to do, so instead of waste company funds by standing around and getting paid to not work, we just leave.
Since NO ONE else gets punished by having their hours cut for coming in late (due to college) or leaving early (the lady I used previously who leaves early isn't in college, she just leaves because she gets bored with nothing to do), is it legal for him to do so to me? I feel like I am being discriminated against simply because they view online college differently.
As a side note: my boss is an alcoholic. He will leave for 1-2hrs in the middle of his shift to go out to the nearby bar and drink, then come back and work some more. While at work he will also be drinking. Usually he'll drink in the back areas where customers can't see, but sometimes he'll also drink out in the open where everyone can see. This makes his moods very hard to predict, and employees are afraid to approach him when they have problems because it can backfire on them and they get punished. Just like when I complained that the manager wasn't letting me go, when others can come in late, and he punished me by lowering my hours. He is the big boss of the entire store, and so no one can defend themselves when they are being treated unfairly because of their fear. Under a normal day I'd not have complained about having to stay, but since I had a test and I wanted out I decided to.

