Can a company force their salaried employee to work more than 40 hours per week?

[KillerCharlie]

You can be lucky like me, where I'm basically salaried but get paid by the hour. I'm guaranteed to work 40 hrs a week, and I get paid my salary divided 2080 (work hours in a year) every hour I work beyond that.

Having to work overtime is extremely rare, it's usually optional.

 

[gophins72]

h1-b was the worst thing to happen to salaried employees

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

h1-b was the worst thing to happen to salaried employees

h1-b is a drop in the bucket. Outsourcing was the worst thing to happen to all employees.

 

[gophins72]

h1-b is a drop in the bucket. Outsourcing was the worst thing to happen to all employees.

you are correct.

 

[herm0016]

i am a salary employee. I work for as many hours that are possible for 2 weeks, then i get a week off, i get paid a percentage of my job tickets and paid extra if i work days off.

There is no requirement. any one can quit their job if they want to.

 

[alkemyst]

h1-b was the worst thing to happen to salaried employees

QFT, it's terribly abused.

One of my old employers (where I met my wife who was hired as H1B), paid us about double the H1B wage for 40 hours of work with benes. The H1B had to work for $400/week and do at least 60 hours. She was paid 1099 so all her taxes were on her.

On top of that he told her the custom was for any holiday off, you had to work two days on.

After I told her that would be illegal to do she confronted them thinking she misunderstood. The owner told her not to worry about it, they didn't need her anymore.

I wanted to sue, she didn't.

When she went to the airport with the return flight ticket they are required to buy for terminating the contract early we found out they canceled it as soon as it was printed.

 

[Engineer]

h1-b is a drop in the bucket. Outsourcing was the worst thing to happen to all employees.

Not just employees...the entire US economy. Rip the foundation out from the bottom and the whole thing will eventually collapse....

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Not just employees...the entire US economy. Rip the foundation out from the bottom and the whole thing will eventually collapse....

Which is why I continually disparage Corporate America for short sightedness. Where do they think the fairy dust is going to come from to keep the American economy and consumers able to support the continual drain from outsourcing?

The answer of course is they don't care. I got mine and screw you. Corporations are the only organism on earth that exhibit the same traits as a rabid dog and are praised for it!

 

[Engineer]

Which is why I continually disparage Corporate America for short sightedness. Where do they think the fairy dust is going to come from to keep the American economy and consumers able to support the continual drain from outsourcing?

The answer of course is they don't care. I got mine and screw you. Corporations are the only organism on earth that exhibit the same traits as a rabid dog and are praised for it!

Bubbles and debt (both personal level and government as a whole). Watch the standard of living drop (as is already thought to be happening) when there are no more bubbles and money to borrow.

 

[Brovane]

I got switched several years ago from salary to hourly and I love it. I like being paid for every hour that I work. I even get compensated now when I am on-call and on stand-by. Last year I brought in a little over $25k in OT and stand-by pay. The exempt/non-exempt laws are fairly strict in CA. If you are salaried/exempt and in IT in CA I tell them to start tracking all there hours. They are probably in-correctly labeled as exempt. However probably if you bring it up the company while fire you. However I tell the person to track all the hours. So if they due get let go they can go to the CA labor board and have a strong case to get all that back pay. I think you can go back 3-years.

 

[ProfJohn]

There are several states that have laws that require people to get paid an hourly wage if they work over 50 hours a week.

These laws were based to keep companies from abusing their salaried managers.

Walmart got sued in a few of these states and completely redid their scheduling and how they ran theirs stores after losing.

Now they work their managers 3 12 hour days in a row and then 3 days off. So you work 48 hours a week and no more.

CA and NJ are two states that I believe have these laws.

 

[KeithP]

Maybe this varies from state to state, but just because you are on "salary" doesn't mean your are exempt from being paid for overtime. There are specific duties that salaried employees must have to be truly exempt from overtime.

This may be what your supervisor is talking about. Legally, if you work overtime they probably are required to pay overtime, but since they aren't, you don't have to put in the extra hours.

-KeithP

 

[IEC]

I've worked 16 hour days before, and 80 hour weeks. Count your blessings.

 

[paperfist]

Question then...why aren't all jobs salaried? Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like a goddamn sweet deal for the employer, in a country which already views things like time off and vacation as whiny cries of people who want to waste their lives doing things other than glorifying their employer.*
Put your workforce on salary, and then make them do anything. Stay until the work is done. If it takes 60 hours, tough shit, enjoy your 40-hours-worth of pay. You're welcome.




* - Reading anything on European vacation/holiday practices gives an idea of who runs the government in the US. They get more holiday hours there than I get in vacation time. Plus 4-6 weeks of paid vacation on top of that. Here, you have to wait until you hit retirement age before you can really get some decent time off.

If I put my employees (in the service industry) on salary I wouldn't have any customers left

 

[TraumaRN]

I'm a fan of how things work as a ER nurse at my current hospital. I work 3x 12 hour shifts. So 4 days off every week. 36 hours is considered full time any hours over 36 hours I get paid at 1.16 my hourly rate. Anything over 40 hours is overtime. I do have to work some holidays but get paid 2.5 times my hourly rate, 3 times my hourly for Christmas. Not to mention we self schedule, so I can take a week of paid time off but by self scheduling that week turns into 2 weeks off and yet I only have to use one week of vacation time...

And current management wonders why no one wants to become a nurse manager and become salaried...