My Sister’s Boss Told Her She Could Work From Home

My sister has worked at a small factory for over 24 years, she has been the shipping and receiving manager there for over 15 years. Last week it snowed Tuesday night, she went to work as she only lives blocks away and could make it, her other 3 employees in her department could not. She has worked there long enough to know that she wouldn’t be receiving any trucks or deliveries due to the snow and nothing would be going out, so she asked the plant manager if she could work from home on that day. They had a system set up for her to do so and she thought this would be prime time to take on a trial run. The plant manager told her that was fine and told her how to log onto system.

Thursday the plant manager reams her for various things, giver her a hard time, telling her that the overtime she had been working, one hour a day for the past several years was no longer allowed. Friday, he told her that she wasn’t getting paid for working from home Wednesday, that if she wanted paid she would have to put in for a vacation day. My sister told him she wanted to speak to HR. He told her that HR works from home on Friday’s. Being that it was the end of the pay period, the only way to get paid was to put in a vacation day, so she did, telling her plant manger they will give it back to her.

She has a meeting with HR tomorrow morning, any advice? If they don’t give her vacation day back and pay her for Wednesday, is that not illegal? She is so worried about getting fired if she stands up to this, as Indiana is a fire at will state.