Wifes manager changed her wage rate on this weeks check

[golf_nut]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Georgia

My wife works for a large national retail chain. She worked 40 hours last week. Her paystub shows that she worked 18 hours at her normal pay rate and 22 hours of "well at work" . The "well at work" rate is 15% less than her normal pay rate. My wife is not on "well at work" and never has been. It appears that this has happened to a few other employee's as well. A few employee's this week and a few different employee's last week.

The store has been over their payroll budget the last few weeks and my wife believes the store manager is changing employee's checks to reflect a lower wage rate without the employee's knowledge in order to save payroll.

Can the manager legally do this?

If no, is there any legal verbiage my wife can use when speaking to the store manager to threaten her with. She is planning on confronting the store manager tomorrow.

Thanks

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

I suggest she contact payroll and HR first, rather than confronting her manager. I assume well at work is a lower wage for disabled employees to continue their job with lower expectations.

 

[single317dad]

OP, please describe the "well at work" program and provide any link you have to internet resources on the issue; that particular phrase is proving very tough to research online.

Thanks!

 

[cbg]

The biggest problem she's going to have is the fact that you're in Georgia. What you've described does not technically violate any Federal or state wage and hour laws in Georgia. (It would in many other states.) She may - *may, not will* have some recourse under contract law. It certainly couldn't hurt for her to discuss it with a lawyer, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yes, it stinks. Yes, the employer is pond scum. No, he's not violating wage laws.

 

[commentator]

I suggest that before she confronts anybody, she check with the Federal Wage and Hour division that serves Georgia, and discusses this with someone. While it isn't illegal, it certainly seems inaccurate, and I feel that it violates the spirit of the labor laws, if not the letter. They will be able to answer her questions, tell her if its perfectly okay, or if it is at all questionable.

If it is not appropriate, or appears any way questionable. they will do an investigation, not in her name or anyone's name, not saying who reported this, but will check with the company to determine if something illegal is happening. If your wife becomes the poster child for "This is unfair and I'm not going to stand for it!" the company will certainly know who did this calling and complaining, and though of course they can't, they will find some way to retaliate against her. It may take a long time for them to get around to doing this investigation, too.

But first of all, as has been said, it would certainly be a very good idea for her to check with her own payroll division first to ask specifically why she was placed in this category, when she had absolutely no changes to her work assignments and was in no way on light duty or different duty of any kind. This sounds like something one enterprising store manager might have come up with to fix the store's issues, and the rest of the company may or may not at all be on board with what they're doing here. I've seen many examples of this sort of thing happening in my time, and confrontation with the local store management is usually not the best way to answer your questions or help the situation.

 

[LeeHarveyBlotto]

Knowing that your words are your words and not your wife's, I would mention that going in with an attitude of "threaten" and "confront" will almost without question have a worse outcome than "seek to understand".

 

[golf_nut]

Update to wife's paycheck issue

Over the course of the last week she found out that her manager also changed several other employees pay checks in the same manner. My wife went to HR as several of you had suggested and their response was that it was an accident. To me it seems like the company (via the store manager) is being unethical at the very least.

 

[cbg]

The problem is that unethical does not always translate to illegal.

 

[commentator]

Accident or unethical desire to mess her up in a not illegal way, did they correct it? I suspect that it may very well have been the work of this one manager trying to keep his payroll down, once it was called to their attention, maybe HR didn't go along with it.