My paycheck has been cut. is this legal?

peacock

SWEETHEART GO AND ASK THE PROCEDURE.

stellar2be

Companies MUST inform - advance notice- employees of a reduction of pay within a specific time frame as based upon your state laws.

Also, check your contract to see if there is any verbage that says that you are guaranteed this salary, and they can or cannot change this at their desire.

The "Axeman" cometh

Because its a small business, they asked you to go from salary to hourly but failed to tell you their reasoning for this change and that is obviously to keep you, but at a lower pay rate. I would sit down with mamagement and tell them your not happy with the underhanded way they got you to agree to them taking you from salary to hourly. Hopefully you can get them to pay you more money at the hourly rate or you could look for work elsewhere, its up to you.

leysarob

Probably, yes. Paying you salary rather than hourly is only a method of paying -- are you exempt from overtime is the true question. Being paid hourly and being non-exempt, you should get time and a half for all time worked over 40 hours in a week. That could work out to be a better deal if you clock in a lot of overtime.

Mel

As an hourly employee, you are now eligible for overtime pay. As a salaried employee, you were not. It is legal for them to cut your pay since your job has been reclassified, although they should have told you about it first. I'd guess that they did so because you are now overtime-eligible and they factored your potential OT earnings into the hourly wage calculation.

Rob

I've had this same thing happen to me back when I was working at a grocery store. First you should check with Human Resources or the payroll department to make sure that there wasn't a clerical error and if there wasn't then ask them why there was a pay cut.

Lowering your pay is legal unless you have a signed employment contract that indicates your pay; however, the way they went about doing it is considered to be unethical by some, and impolite my almost everyone.

Also, if you are converted between salaried and hourly your basic hourly pay should not change as it should be the same as salaried pay is based upon a 40 hour work week.

TedEx

Yes it is, but they should have told you they were doing it. Most unprofessional of them to do it that way.

Judy

It's more than a little strange that they didn't notify you that this was going to happen, but yes, it's legal unless you have a contract for the higher amount.

Your option is to quit and go work somewhere else.

Ronin

It may be a mistake. Go talk to the person that does payroll and ask them why your rate was reduced.

blue_barn27b

Seems that's the difference between salary and hourly pay!! Check with HR to be sure. If they say it's "company policy" (a company's legal loophole), that's your new pay rate!!! Nothing you can do about it, except, maybe start looking for another job!!!

wonderingself

I don't think they can do that without a notice & explanation. To do so without notice is like breeching an agreement. You agreed to work for such and such pay. If they want to change that, you ought to have the right to review and accept or reject their proposal. Otherwise, they are like forcing you to work for less than you intended by not telling you of a planned change. That eliminates the basic premise in America that if you don't like the pay, you can go work elsewhere. You should have that option beforehand, not afterwards. It must be an error, but be nice when you ask about it. You should also be granted any possible back-pay due to such an error.
Any reason for advance notice of such changes is that people have budgets to live by, so they can try to keep up with expenses based on wages.

Thomas O

It's probably legal but not very nice. Start looking around if you haven't already.

In some states it is not legal for the employer to reclassify the employee and/or cut there salary without notifying them first. Since you do not mention what state you are in I cannot see if this particular law applies to you. Call your state Department of Labor. They will advise you if this was legal for your home state or you can research this yourself if you have the time on Findlaw.com.

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