Salary to hourly and then back to salary

[MRRRJH]

I live in NJ, and have worked for a retail store for 14 years (30 employees). Years ago my boss fired our store manager and made each of the dept managers/buyers store managers (with no compensation)so that he didn't have to hire a new manager. He's done some real shady things over the years. We've all been on salary for years, where we have to work a 46.5 hour work week (after breaks) for our salary and our "overtime" is supposedly built into our salary. We could work more hours without getting compensated for it, but if we went under the 46.5 he wanted us to make up the hours or dock our salary for it. A few months ago he realized one employee wasn't working the required hours, so to stop that from happening he had a meeting and made us all hourly. We each got our hourly rate and what our rate is for the overtime. If we worked the hours we were supposed to our paychecks were supposed to come out to the same amount as when we were on salary. Yesterday he realized that because we close the store and are here after hours (that we never got paid for before) we were getting a little more overtime than the 6.5 hours/week and we were individually asked to "absorb" the overtime we went over the last few months over our next 7 paychecks!! He also called the bookkeeper and told her to switch us all back to salary, but never even asked us.


Please Help!

 

[cbg]

Salary is only a pay method and has no legal status of its own. The real question is whether you are exempt or non-exempt as defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Which are you? If you don't know for sure, what are your regular duties? Please be as specific as possible.

 

[MRRRJH]

Salary is only a pay method and has no legal status of its own. The real question is whether you are exempt or non-exempt as defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Which are you? If you don't know for sure, what are your regular duties? Please be as specific as possible.

I'm not sure if I'm exempt. My regular duties would be to open and close the store, count out cashiers, scheduling, hiring (for my specific department) I'm technically the store manager on specific days, but there are 4 other managers who are also "store" managers that do the same thing on other days. I am the manager of the clothing department and also the buyer for that specific department. It's a small business, so the department managers wear almost every hat. Thank you!

 

[cbg]

Based on what you have stated, it's by no means clear one way or the other but you *could* be considered exempt. More detail would be needed to say for sure. The number of other employees who do the same thing you do is not really a factor.

If indeed you are exempt, you need not be paid anything extra for extra hours worked; however, the circumstances under which your pay can be docked are limited. An exempt employee can have their pay docked under the following, and only the following, conditions:

1.) It is the first or last week of employment and you do not work the entire week
2.) The time you do not work is attributable to FMLA
3.) Your employer offers a reasonable number of paid sick days, and you call in sick when you either have used all the days to which you were entitled or you have not yet accrued any
4.) You voluntarily take time off for personal reasons
5.) You are suspended for the violation of a major safety violation
6.) You are suspended for the violation of a written policy which applies to all employees and which relates to workplace conduct.

#s 1-2 can be in either full or partial day increments, 3-6 can be in full days increments only. In ALL cases your employer may require that you use vacation or other paid leave with or without your knowledge or approval; however if you are out of paid leave you must be paid anyway where applicable.

If you are non-exempt, which is still possible (there's simply not enough information to say) you must be paid overtime for any hours over 40 in a week but you need not be paid for any time missed for any reason (limited state-specific exceptions apply) regardless of how much paid leave you may have.