Question about salaries....

[Bat Boy]

My boss is telling me that, by law, you must make "x" amount of dollars to be put on salary.

Do I smell bullshit? Or is this something I missed?

[yella_dawg]

1. Unless this comes out of the changes to labor law

Bunnypants pushed through, it is bullshit. Actually, it is probably bullshit. "Salary" is just a sweet way to keep from paying overtime anyway.

[gollygee]

2. Once upon a time

I made $16k a year and was on salary.

It was in the early 1990s, so inflation doesn't count for that much.

[elehhhhna]

3. Per new "Kill Overtime" rule, it's about 22K per year. BIG WHOOP.

Edit : 23,660./yr (455. per week)

[TomClash]

4. BS

probably. Assuming you work for a private company, there is no federal law regulating wages except federal minimum wage law. Illinois law may be different, but I doubt it. Call up the State Department of Labor in Illinois and ask them.

I suspect it is really "company policy."

A good response might be "then pay me X dollars."

[AngryAmish]

12. Il has $6,50 minimum wage

[ET Awful]

5. It's bullshit.

I guess theoretically you'd have to make over minimum wage, as salaried employees are often not eligible for overtime, so if you made minimum wage and were salaried, they could require you to work overtime without additional compensation, so you'd in effect be making less than minimum wage.

[Xipe Totec]

6. There is a minimum annualized wage before you can be a salaried employee

A salaried employee is exempt from overtime pay. If you make less than the annual wages then you are an hourly employee and the company is obligated by law to pay you for each hour of work.

Congress was trying to change the law so that "managers" could be exempt from overtime pay regardless of annual wages. The dodge was to have an employee "supervise" one or more employees, thereby earning the title of "manager", and forfeiting overtime pay.

[elehhhhna]

8. Not Congress, the DOL--and they DID change it.

[Xipe Totec]

11. Yes That's True. Thanks for the Correction n/t

[elehhhhna]

7. They implemented the rule change. STOP GUESSING.

23,660/yr is the minimum salary for (overtime pay) exempt employees.

"Professional" has been redefined much more broadly--it includes any specialized training , from the Military, community college, whatever.


Overtime rules may affect 7.3M
New federal rules governing overtime pay went into effect Monday. USA TODAY workplace reporter Stephanie Armour explains how the rules will affect some workers. (Column: New overtime rules are mostly bad news for employees)

Sandy Williams of the American Federation of Government Employees at a Washington protest.
By Gerald Herbert, AP

Q: What do the rules do?

A: The new rules are the first major update in more than 50 years to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which includes overtime laws. Those laws ensure that certain workers get extra pay, generally called "time and a half," for every hour beyond a 40-hour week.

The new regulations from the Department of Labor are mainly aimed at revising overtime pay for white-collar workers.

Q: Who will benefit?

A: Many lower-wage earners are more likely to get overtime under the changes. That's because the regulations set a new "salary threshold" for determining who gets overtime. Workers who earn less than $455 a week, or $23,660 a year, will now be able to collect overtime pay, regardless of their job duties.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:wjJjPF3-glIJ:www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-08-23-overtime_x.htm+salary+overtime+pay+ruling+department+labor&hl=en

[seabeyond]

9. ergo is likely a company would not chose salary

for the employee that makes under that amount guarentee overtime, which conflicts with the mutual agreement of employee employeer chosing salary as pay. at this point we now have to time clock that employee and make sure of the hours worked and not. to much work for me, and hassle, because of lack of responsibility of employee to accurately keep track of their hours. for the last four years i am just amazed how the employees take off, never recording their time. now i could sit in there and watch and control, but have another job. i kinda see i should be able to give an employee this responsibility and they should be able to meet that expectation. i dont think i have had one employee i can look at time card and say i trust it is correct

i have often looked in employees eyes an said, i want to pay you for the hours you work. i dont want to pay you hours you did not work. and then the employee calls me a bitch. dont get it. but that is out there. husband own computer businesss, hires people with degrees, pays them a lot of money.

anyway, i had to watch this go thru to understand the angles, to know what to do with our employees and what we were willing to do. just another angle, perspective

[seabeyond]

10. four years, around 50 employees, i have three employees

one in his twenties,.........the two others later 40's, 50's. all three have been with us for years.

[amazona]

14. guess I don't understand this

The people I know who work by the hour...if they just "took off" and didn't clock out, they would be fired.

Can't understand how this could even be a problem. It's pretty easy to see if someone is on the clock or not. They're either in the office or at the job site or they are not.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[seabeyond]

15. not true.....

my husband isnt a hard ass employer so many diss on this site. one gal early 20's single a two year old trying to survive. regardless of the number of times she "forgot" to clock in or out, we werent going to fire her. beyond that re valued her work. further, i wasnt about to short her pay, so inevitably i allowed the time to be more than fair. a number of times paying when she wasnt there. happened with about all the employees that clocked in. would tell them, i use to clock in not a lot to ask, you dont clock in you dont get paid. but i would call before pay period and have people guess when they came in so i could get their pay.

my husband business not mine. i would fire their ass, he is nicer.

have a gal on salary. have told her many times to mark on calander when she takes time off. yet to do it. this year i have to get in with all the salary tell them your job. now do we fire these people, some would say, but then again, we value them as employees

my husband is out on jobs most of the time. we have hired people to be in office to handle that end.

i had a business where i was there all the time. yes the people clocked in, or when they didnt, i knew and wrote it in. never did short an employee.

but as a business person amazon, you are right, first time should fire em.

[amazona]

13. you don't wanna be put on salary if you can avoid it

If you are on salary, it means you don't get overtime and paid holidays or double/triple time when you have to work on holidays.

I heard that you need to earn at least $22K a year to be put on salary but I would not take such a job. A friend who manages a Burger King makes about that, maybe a bit more now. It is less than miminum wage since he must work 16 hour days. It's OK for him since he needs all his time filled (he is a recovering alcoholic) but for most people if you are low-paid you really need to insist on hourly wages. Otherwise they work you until you drop, and you have no time to yourself.

On Edit -- thanks for the "stop guessing" post, it answers some questions. I hope it means my friend is getting paid a bit more now. If I were him, I'd be bananas from exhaustion!

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[ProfessorGAC]

16. I Don't Believe That's Correct

It might be a company rule, but i think anyone can be salaried, as long as the salary divided by the expected work hours exceeds the minimum wage.

I don't think there are any other legal requirements. I checked in an employment law book by Bagley. (West Publishing) I could find no references at all to laws regarding who can and cannot be salaried employees.
The Professor