When an employee is on salary, how much can the employer work them

[Quixote1818]

before they have to start paying them extra? Or can they just work them to death because they are on salary?

I have a friend who sets up book displays in schools in several states. Then he returns back the next week to fill the orders. When he finishes at the schools he spends several more hours preparing his drops for the next day. It is very grueling work. He is on salary making around $30,000 a year. He works about 11 months out of the year but when he is working he puts in 13 to 14 hour days and works six to seven days a week. He looks like he is going to have a heart attack.

The other day I figured up what he would be making if he worked for $8.00 and hour, with overtime and it came out to over well over $50,000 a year, perhaps as high as $60,000.

I just looked up the labor laws on salaried workers and they were too complicated for me to understand. Is his employer breaking the law or is he allowed to put this guy in the grave?

As Thom Hartman often says "If you can't afford to pay your employees a good wage, then you shouldn't be in business." Thats what I told him.

[Jed Dilligan]

1. There are exempt and non-exempt positions

Exempt means exempt from overtime; they can work you to death if they feel like it.

[AnneD]

2. I have taken figures like your calculations to bosses before...

and asked for a raise. More times than not, I got a raise. If I didn't get a raise, I got a new job (and generally didn't give two weeks notice). I laugh every time someone tells me I have to give 2 wks notice. In a right to work state they can drop your ass in a New York minute and it works both ways. Two weeks is a courtesy not a requirement.

[napi21]

4. You're right, BUT you risk a future or even your new employer to

view you as an employee with a BAD ATTITUDE. Sometimes it's worth the risk.

[progressive_realist]

5. As long as you are a skilled laborer, this strategy is likely to work in your favor

One way of looking at it is that employers would ideally like to pay employees the minimum amount a qualified person will work for plus an amount equal to estimated turnover costs over time (e.g. hiring, training, and bringing someone new up to the appropriate experience level). If they pay below this level, turnover costs are likely to hurt their bottom line, but if they pay above this level, wage costs will do the same.

For relatively unskilled jobs, turnover costs are low and minimum accepted wages are also low. If you are stuck in one of these jobs, demands for a raise are not likely to be met. Wages will only rise for these jobs if the employers face an extended period of elevated turnover or inability to fill positions, i.e if they discover that no one wants to work at the current wage level.

If, on the other hand, you are more expensive or difficult to replace, bosses will be likely to pay the additional amount asked for rather than incur the higher turnover costs only to find out they mis-priced the position and end up having to pay both higher wages and the high turnover costs.

The irony of this is that lower-wage jobs tend to get smaller raises in both percentage and absolute terms than higher-wage jobs. I think this natural feature of the labor marketplace tends to encourage economic stratification in the absence of counter-balancing factors. From my own experience, when you are earning less than about $40K/yr, you are unlikely to ever see an annual raise larger than 5%, but 15-20% raises are not uncommon once you have broken the $50K barrier.

[Juche]

6. Interesting

But that is what unions are for, to increase the economic risk employers face from paying low wages. The threat of a strike can cost an employer millions of dollars in a very short period of time.

At the same time employers can drive down wages by encouraging a sense of desperation or creating a labor surplus. They can do this by lobbying for more H1-B visas, encouraging immigration or funding education of people in their field until the market is saturated. Plus if the employees are deep in debt and feel they can lose their job on a whim, they will work for lower wages and fewer benefits. I never took macroeconomics, so this is just my impression.

But I have seen in my limited experience an example of what you are talking about. My dad is a pharmacist, which is a high paying field with high demand and a labor deficit. As a result even at 57 years old with numerous chronic healthcare problems he claims he can change jobs and find another position that pays $50/hr+ and offers full medical for him and my mom, who is 59.

[AnneD]

14. They have been sticking Nurses with

2%-3% annuals since I have been a Nurse-even when the economy was good, yet the CEO's get obscene amounts. I once moved to a more rural (it was not THAT rural or cheap) area and they tried to tell me they paid $16/hr. I told them I didn't even put my key in the ignition for less than $20. I did find a nice facility that would pay $20 + shift dif. The $16 place was a union (SEIU-yeah right-the administration's union)eventually had to pay more because they could not hire or retain staff. I have defiantly learned to stand up for myself and others (I am a union steward) in the work place. Crappy pay and unsafe conditions for patients and staff are what has made me union and I honour my union contract-but I know the rules in this right to work state.

I have a good work attitude and ethic, but I expect to be paid for the job I do and I won't take less than a fair wage. My employers have never been unhappy with my job.

[napi21]

3. There is NO LIMIT to the # of hrs you are asked to work if you are

an exempt employee. HOWEVER, the employee needs to look at the job they are really doing and see if it really IS an exempt position. There are rules that apply, and just saying an employee is "the manager" (or supervisor) doesn't always comply with those rules. Many companies used that trick to get "free labor" and have been sued and paid dearly!

Check this link. It details things pretty well.
http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html

Unfortunately, most employers will push the envelope as far as they san get away with!

[melm00se]

7. i can tell

you that i worked what was thought to be an exempt position but which turned out to be an non-exempt position and it cost the company significant coin.

[JDPriestly]

10. Please note that each state has its own laws on this, although

the FLSA pretty much summarizes it. But, napi21, you are so right. Employers sometimes characterize a position as exempt when it is not. A few years ago, quite a number of lawsuits were brought on behalf of California employees who were actually not exempt but who were paid as thought they were exempt.

[LWolf]

8. I am on salary.

My contract says that I show up by 8:30 every morning, except for the obligatory staff meeting each week, and leave no later than 4:00.

That includes a 30 minute lunch, except that I can be asked to be "on duty" for 15 of those 30 minutes. There are two times during the day that I can walk over to the building (I'm in a portable) to use the restroom; one at 9:40 am, and one at 11:30 am. It's not an official "break," it's just times when I'm not directly "on duty" with other people.

Of course, my contract also lays out the duties that I must fulfill.

There is no human way to accomplish everything within those hours, and everyone knows it.

In reality, I show up at 7am every morning, and I leave somewhere between 4:30 and 6:00. The earlier I leave, the more work I take home for evenings and weekends. There is no pay for any extra hours. It's part of the "professional day." If I choose to spend part of that "professional day" doing paperwork at home, that's fine, as long as I'm there by 8:30 and stay until at least 4:00, and as long as the job is done in a timely manner.

[napi21]

9. I know. Been there and done that. I didn't have a contract though.

There WAS a time when I actually calculated my hours to make sure I was even getting minimum wage! As I advanced to better positions I did find the advantages of being salaried too. You aren't penalized for going to an appointment during working hours, although I Never took unfair advantage of that as some others did, and if you have a lunch appointment with someone, and it lasts 1 1/2 hrs, it's no big deal either, as long as the work gets done.

The company my hubby works for advises their salaried managers that they are expected to work 50-60 hrs a week! They make a decent wage but it's not great if you figure it out over that many hrs. That's one of the reasons a lot of their hourly employees won't go into management.

[JDPriestly]

11. If you aren't doing it already, start keeping a written record of the

hours you work. Be sure to account for the time you take for breaks and lunches. You may want to see a lawyer.

[LWolf]

12. I'm a teacher.

The same scenario holds true for the vast majority of the teaching population.

[AZ Criminal JD]

13. If he is a salesmen and the book displays are promotional work he is exempt from the law.

Outside salesmen are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act. That is , salesmen who do their work away from the employer's principle place of business. If that is what he does and setting up the books is promotional work to get the sales he is probably exempt from the law and can't get overtime protection.

[KharmaTrain]

15. A Flashback...

I faced this dilemma in the 80's. I was working as a "manager" on a salary...and I was told that the salary covers your 40 hours...if you complete your work in 30, so be it...or if it takes 80, so be it as well. It almost always took 80. One time, when I first was hired, I asked about overtime and the Business Manager looked at me like I had landed from another planet and said "this company has never paid overtime".

A few years later, I went to the state Wage and Hour division to find out their definition of when you are an employee or are considered management. First...if you fill out a time card...you are an employee and you are entitled to money for the hours you work. Many employers (mine included) would tell us just to fill out the timecard as a "formality"...put in the 40 hours, but never put in any extra. I didn't realize until then that by doing that I had forfeited away pay and the state said that trying to nail the employer for wages from years back is all but impossible. Moral of this story...the hours you work are what you put on the time card...something I did from then on forward...much to the consternation of that and future employers.

Also...you are "management" if you have "power of the purse". Meaning that you can spend the companies money. In my capacity, I was hiring employees, but I never had the authority to fire...or to determine wages. Again, I was told this meant I wasn't management at all.

Lastly...some employers tried to skirt employment laws by making employees "Independent Contractors"...paying for a specific job that is supposed to take a specific amount of time and if it takes you longer, then so be it. The IRS has gotten tough on some of this, but during the booosh regime has again slipped back so that this law is being violated right and left. Be careful of this gimmick as to be a true independent you have to "bring you own tools to work"...such as a hammer or truck or laptop...but once you use their equipment, you are not a contractor, but an employee.

Hope this is relevant or useful...