Is it legal to change payscale from salary, to hourly and then back to salary?

I work for a small company who is very shady about paying their employees. Basically, we get paid Salary but, if we miss 1 hour during a pay period we a dropped to hourly and our paychecks reflect that.

So to break it down, if we are paid Salary, we cannot get paid more if we work over time and we are not paid overtime for holidays but at the same time, if we work less than 80 hours we are bumped down to hourly and we actually lose hours/money on our checks. Is that even legal?
Additional Details
If this is not legal, where is a good online resource I could go to find learn more about this?

michr

there is a great deal of misunderstanding about exempt status and salary, the two are NOT the same.
most salary positions are NOT exempt.

what you are explaining is legal IF
your position is "non-exempt", which means that you are paid overtime if you work more then 40 hours in a week and you are paid less if you don't work at least 40 hours in a week.
what you have explained is not legal IF
your position is "exempt", then your salary can not be reduced for partial days only whole days and generally only if that whole day missed is for personal reasons not illness (there are exceptions to this).

many salaried employees are paid a salary based on a 45 or 50 hour week, what that means is they are actually paid an amount for 40 hours and overtime for the hours over 40, which when added together equals their "agreed to" salary. that agreed to salary can change from week to week based on working more then the agreed to hours or less then the agreed to hours.

being salaried does NOT make a job exempt only the duties of the job are used to determine exempt status. to understand the differences between salary, hourly, salary exempt, salary non-exempt and the deductions that are allowed to salary exempt wages see these links:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17a_overview.pdf
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17g_salary.pdf
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf

Doctor Deth

doesn't sound legal to me - don;t you even get any sick or personal time hrs? call yur state dept of labor - the exact job title and responsibilities might affect their answers

Wounded Duck

Diane A

No. There are very specific qualifications to categorize an employee as "exempt" (or salaried); and they can not change at will. Contact the local government office that deals with labor in your area (look in the gov pages in the phone book) and report to them; you can also file a class-action lawsuit to recover wages.

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