In the place I work at, we start off the day with a standup meeting from members of different teams at 8:00am, which is a little bit on the earlier side of the day since many employees have 1+ hour commutes. This standup was imposed after many of the team members that participate joined the company (before that, the standard time to arrive was at 9:00am). The meeting is in-office, mandatory.
Any person that arrives even one minute late, gets 50% of their corresponding pay for that day off. Mind you, many of us work 10-12 hours a day and are expected to be available at any time of the day in case someone needs us and even during the weekends (I, for instance, have a mandatory meeting on Saturday and it is expected of me to fix anything that goes wrong with our product during the weekend). We do not get paid extra-time for any of those extra hours that we put.
Usually, the issue is minor or can probably be resolved with a discussion.
Not in this case. Start applying for new jobs ASAP. The fact that the company is willing to dock your pay by 50% for a on min late arrival signals a god-awful culture. RUN.
Is that even legal?
I could go on with the list of things that are definitely off (the gaslighting, the verbal abuses, the fear culture that's been instilled, nano-management, etc.), but that's really not the point.
Also, this is not in the US, but it's also illegal here.
I've started to interview at other companies and will leave soon (and hopefully wiser).
I also think that many of these rules, policies, toxic culture, etc. weren't created in a void, but they were built with one stone a time, all of that subtly disguised in 'the company's mission', or with statements like "less millenialism, more professionalism", and the 'work hard' mentality (that the founders don't even abide to, since they work the least of all, some even have side gigs). I really feel sorry for many of my non-tech co-workers that don't have that many options out there.
There seems to be some history to this decision (and probably other decisions), as indicated by your comments:
This standup was imposed after many of the team members that participate joined the company (before that, the standard time to arrive was at 9:00am)
I brought that up to the CEO/founder and he responded that he's open to proposals. I said that my proposal was to eliminate that policy, but he mentioned that "you cannot replace an idea with a non-idea". Then I mentioned that they should at least reduce it, but he responded that if they reduced it, people would start getting in late (which they rarely did before that policy, and if they did, it was for very justifiable reasons).
Further, what is the average/median work-ex of team members in your company? Are people able to work largely independently, or do they essentially need face-time with senior members to be productive?
PS: Try not to internally frame this as an "but flexi-time should be there, it is best for developers" argument. Those are not universal truths. They need to be seen in the context of the business/domain you are in, the maturity of the team, and the culture that the company wants to build/promote.
Context: I'm a founder where I have implemented heavy-handed policies after getting tired of people not adhering to basic work-place protocols ("professionalism"), even after informally pointing out such things multiple times.
Also as others have said, you should start shopping around for a new position.
Sounds more like a sweatshop