Forums
Exempt salaried employees
Benefits & Compensation
Exempt salaried employees
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
I'm sure this subject gets beat around more often than not but I have to ask. My wife recently got a new job as an instructor at a beauty school. She's a salaried except employee and works Tues-Sat an
0
Cat:Topic ForumsForum:ForumId52
Cat:Topic ForumsForum:ForumId52Discussion:DiscussionId36842
Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Exempt salaried employees
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 3:13 AM EST
|
Posts: 21
First: 9/21/2007 Last: 12/16/2010 |
I'm sure this subject gets beat around more often than not but I have to ask. My wife recently got a new job as an instructor at a beauty school. She's a salaried except employee and works Tues-Sat and 9 hrs/day. Also, this is Wisconsin.
Over thanksgiving break, she was told they got Thurs-Sat off. She took Thursday and Friday off but came in for 4 hours on Saturday to help out her manager. *personally I think it was a good excuse to come home from the in-laws early! hehe She finally got her paycheck for Thanksgiving and found out they only paid her Tues & Wed and 6 hours of wages for Saturday at a rate slightly less than her salary. They also told her after-the-fact that had she worked Friday they would have paid her for Thursday. That sounds like a common policy for wage based employees, but I've never heard that for salaried. I'm not that educated on salaried/wage and exempt/non-exempt employees, but to my best knowledge this sounds completely wrong. First, shouldn't salaried-exempt employees receive full compensation as long as they worked ANY hours in that week? Second, they could give her a bonus for coming in over a holiday as a, well bonus, but to pay her a wage based on the hours she worked seems wrong. Even if they have a policy, this still seems to go against WI labor laws. All-in-all she ended up getting docked 3 days pay minus the 6 hours they paid her for Saturday. Is this legal or should she have been paid in full for the week? |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 5:59 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Are you sure she is salaried exempt and not just salaried? It would really surprise me if a beauty school teacher met the exemption requirements. I'd be curious as to which exception they use to justify it!
That said, there is definitely something wrong with the situation. Either she is exempt and should have been paid for the whole week OR she should be receiving OT when she works over 40 hours (does she get a break/lunch on the days she works or is she truly working a 9 hour day?_ |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 6:03 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 2146
First: 2/15/2006 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Let me clarify one thing...an employer can deduct for a full days absence for an exempt employee for personal use. But they could NOT deduct for a partial day.
If the business was closed on Thanksgiving and she could NOT have worked, then she also should have been paid for that day regardless of whether she took Friday off or not. So the only day that I see they could have deducted under exempt rules is Friday. here's a link to what deductions are allowed under an exempt employee: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/overtime/cr4.htm#2 |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 6:56 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 562
First: 11/12/2009 Last: 9/14/2011 |
I also have to question the exemption status here. Like rrupert, I can't think of an exemption category for which your wife would qualify. I suspect the real reason why she's "salaried" is because she works 45 hours per week and they don't want to pay overtime rates for the extra 5 hours. |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 8:16 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 21
First: 9/21/2007 Last: 12/16/2010 |
I had her ask her HR manager what her classification was, and they told her exempt, but I'll look into if that's correct or not. It wouldn't surprise me if she just didn't know though, she has been blatantly wrong before on benefit issues.
Where/how do I find out if she qualifies for exempt? As I said she's an instructor for a beauty institute, which is basically a private school. She makes 35k/yr. She's professionally licensed. |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 8:59 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 562
First: 11/12/2009 Last: 9/14/2011 |
www.dol.gov is the Department of Labor website. They outline the various federal labor laws including the one you're interested in, which is the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA.
The Act outlines several categories of exempt employee. These are: 1. Outside sales representative. 2. Executive/management 3. Administrative 4. Professional The first 2 clearly don't apply. Administrative is typically reserved for high level administrative assistants to executives. Professional might be the peg they're hanging the exempt hat on, but that's a classification for professionals requiring advanced education (lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc). There are also a number of other job specific exemptions, but I didn't see your wife's occupation listed. The DOL website does have both a long and short test to establish if your position is exempt or non-exempt. You can try one or both, but I'm pretty certain that your wife's position isn't exempt. Keep in mind that there are severe penalties for misclassifying employees. If your wife is improperly classified and should've been paid OT for any hours over 40 in a workweek, then the employer is subject to treble damages for a 3 year period. It's not uncommon for a small employer to misclassify employees as exempt, and the Obama administration recently announced new initiatives to strengthen FLSA enforcement. |
|
|
Exempt salaried employees
posted at 12/16/2010 9:06 AM EST
|
|
Posts: 21
First: 9/21/2007 Last: 12/16/2010 |
Thanks you very much, I did find that and also came to the same conclusion. Are public school teachers considered exempt? Although she didn't need an undergrad she was required to have x amount of schooling and something like 2000 "floor hours" before she was able to take her instructors license exam. Personally I'm hoping she's non-exempt, but would hate to file a complaint only to find out she meets the requirements. |
Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Exempt salaried employees
