quote:

Originally posted by lunchbox:
I’d hire the lawyer just to prove a point. The money is irrelevant, I don’t like to be taken advantage of and will pay to ruin their day if they piss me off bad enough. I’ve had to do this before with an employer over on call pay.

Also, I found some more info. I don’t get paid by the hour so they can’t deduct by the hour according to L&I. If I work any hours in a day, even 30 minutes or something like that I’m supposed to get paid for the whole day. There is no hourly rate so they can’t deduct hours. If I miss a full day they can deduct a full days pay but not hours.

I’m also no slacker for going to the fucking doctors like twice a year. Jesus man. I work 50-60 hours a week, sometimes more. I don’t take breaks ever and rarely stop working to take a proper lunch. Plus going to the doctors office is just part of life. If they want to pay me by the hour they need to pay me by the hour and nut up on that overtime. Im perfectly willing to work a salaried job but not if they want to treat me like an hourly employee and just not pay overtime.

I'll take everything you said at face value and believe it. Does your boss not know about your work ethic? Another question in my head is when you say you duck out for an hour or two, do you not give your boss a heads up that you'll be out for the hour or two, just in case he looks for you during that time you are out?

Salaried Exempt employees are not paid for the hours they work but for the achieving the results they're tasked. You're also supposed to have control over your time as in, your boss doesn't tell you to go to work station 2 for the next two hours, and so on.

I used to work 12-14-16 hours daily and sometimes I go home at 2 PM Fridays just to miss the commute and enjoy working the weekends at home. Yes, I said working the weekends at home.

I would talk with your boss first and get an understanding of what the actual issue is because there's a good chance it's not about the hours actually.

Do you even submit a time card? In the companies that did, it was really just a chore because the salaried people would put in 8 hours across the board and then you get dinged because you put in 8 hours for the holiday when you weren't there.

As a salaried employee, I only earned PTO and the wage earners used to get sick leave and PTO. But I think the common way is to roll all of them in. All this to say a couple of hours off doesn't call for getting your salary docked unless it's specifically written as company policy.

Federal law says that salaried exempt workers get paid for the week if they work 1 hour. There is no provision to tie work hours to pay. If an employee is absent too much, it is a disciplinary issue, not a pay issue.


But the biggest crime companies commit is falsely classifying you as exempt when you are not. Exempt status requires significant managerial responsibility (managing other salaried people, not a supervisor of hourly people), specialized training and education (generally a license or professional degree - MD, DDS, CPA, JD, etc.) or high salary ($120,000 or so).

Lot of companies including mine say you are exempt of you are salary and justify it by requiring a college degree. That is not a valid position.

quote:

Originally posted by lunchbox:
I’d hire the lawyer just to prove a point. The money is irrelevant, I don’t like to be taken advantage of and will pay to ruin their day if they piss me off bad enough. I’ve had to do this before with an employer over on call pay.

Also, I found some more info. I don’t get paid by the hour so they can’t deduct by the hour according to L&I. If I work any hours in a day, even 30 minutes or something like that I’m supposed to get paid for the whole day. There is no hourly rate so they can’t deduct hours. If I miss a full day they can deduct a full days pay but not hours.

I’m also no slacker for going to the fucking doctors like twice a year. Jesus man. I work 50-60 hours a week, sometimes more. I don’t take breaks ever and rarely stop working to take a proper lunch. Plus going to the doctors office is just part of life. If they want to pay me by the hour they need to pay me by the hour and nut up on that overtime. Im perfectly willing to work a salaried job but not if they want to treat me like an hourly employee and just not pay overtime.

I would suggest that you read your employment contract, as whatever you agreed to in that employment contract is what they can and can't legally do. Then go to HR or your boss if there is no HR department and explain all of this.

But, the fact that you would hire a lawyer over 2 hours of lost pay and this attitude in your post tells me that you are a problem employee. Generally you don't hire a lawyer unless you've already exhausted other avenues and you surely don't hire a lawyer over 2 hours of lost pay. If the company is large enough they have a lawyer on retainer that costs them a lot less than your lawyer and the only point it proves is that you're an idiot. The only thing you'd be ruining is your wallet.

I've been a successful business owner for over 25 years now. I treat my employees very well, and if there is a problem with something I do, or something they need (time off etc.), they can come talk to me and I'm open to trying to help them out, sometimes even when it costs me extra money. However, if I have a problem employee that talks to me with disrespect or causes un-necessary problems to "prove a point" when they could've just come talk to me like an adult, they're going to get all of the crappy jobs nobody wants to do, hours cut, or get broomed immediately depending on the severety. Actions have consequences.

Read the info in the links I posted.

Most do not understand it is not about losing 2 hours pay. A practice of deducting 2 hours pay can mean a loss of the exemption. That could mean overtime was required to be paid for all hours worked over 40. This would apply to all employees losing the exempt status and go back a certain period of time covering all uncompensated overtime pay that should have been paid.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
I've been a successful business owner for over 25 years now. I treat my employees very well, and if there is a problem with something I do, or something they need (time off etc.), they can come talk to me and I'm open to trying to help them out, sometimes even when it costs me extra money. However, if I have a problem employee that talks to me with disrespect or causes un-necessary problems to "prove a point" when they could've just come talk to me like an adult, they're going to get all of the crappy jobs nobody wants to do, hours cut, or get broomed immediately depending on the severety. Actions have consequences.

But not every business owner or manager is as decent as you are. If the OP was your employee and did what he’s thinking of doing, you would be right to say he’s the problem because you’re a decent owner and he could have come and talked with you.

But he’s already talked to his boss and his boss says it’s not worth it to him as his boss to go to bat for his employee. His boss isn’t arguing that the employee is wrong; his boss simply doesn’t want to make waves for himself. But, I’m willing to bet if it was money being taken out of his paycheck, he would raise bloody hell.