Workplace Lawyers: Can A Company Mandate You Take Pto Even If You Hit 40 Paid Hours Worked?

Location: Indiana. Full time worker. I ask this as my employers are requiring me to use PTO to cover for a day I came in late for a family emergency. However, since I was scheduled overtime, my total worked hours came to forty with the time lost. They are still requiring me to use my PTO on that day to “make up” the hours lost. They claim their policy states that any time used for coming in late, regardless of reason, must be covered with PTO. They also state my extra hours will not be counted as overtime. This means not only am I losing PTO hours I’ll not be paid overtime for the extra hours. Without the use of the PTO I’ll have fourty hours but they want me to also use four extra PTO hours because of coming in late. My question is: can they actually do this? Force me to use PTO, not pay me overtime, and can they really hide behind this action with a policy? Is this not an example of wage theft? I’m confused and do not like my PTO hours being used unnecessarily. Thank you.