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CA Labor Law: Salary to hourly demotion

jenmakes — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:16:12 -0800

CA Labor Law: A friend has been demoted from salaried to hourly after giving notice. Is this illegal? He thinks there may have been a law passed a few years ago banning a salary to hourly demotion. True? My friend was a kitchen manager with no hiring/firing power (in California); he gave notice last month and planned to leave at the beginning of August. Now with about a month to go, he has been demoted to his former position of Line Cook and his pay has decreased and gone from salaried to hourly. There has been no complaint against work.

The person taking over his kitchen manager job has simultaneously been upgraded to salaried and is in training for the new position. His boss essentially just did a switch-a-roo between the two workers.

My friend thinks this may be illegal in CA (possibly a new-ish law). If it is illegal, is there a .gov website that clearly states the law?

Labor law help needed for socal govt contract employee

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:38:47 -0800

I believe my company, a government contractor, is using alot of grey areas in their employee time cards to get away with paying as little as possible. For example, I am listed with them as "salary", which by my understanding would mean I get x amount of payment per pay period. However, they still have everyone fill out a time card, and pay us per the hours we have worked. However with widely varying schedules each week due to employees being sick, or managers (who do not get paid by hour but really are salaried) taking our shifts, it means our paychecks can vary by several hundred dollars either direction.

Now this means on the upshot, I have some weeks I get to pull in more hours, and to be honest this happens more often than not. However, since they list our positions as "salary", any overtime is treated as a normal hour. We do not get 1.5x for hours over 40 per week, and do not get 2.0x for holidays, etc. We just get the same rate for every hour we work no matter when it is.

At this time let me point out that everyone's shift here is, by virtue of the fact we have 12 hour shifts for 24/7 positions and the number of people we do, a minimum of 84 hours per 2 weeks. Thats broken into a 60 hour week, and then a 24 hour week. I can provide more details on how that breaks down if it seems relevant to the issue.

Even though I'm not totally comfortable with the setup as is, I can deal with it for the most part. Concern grows however, when in the past several weeks, a sub-contractor to our company, who supplies some of the employees I share shifts with, determined our jobs to be "hourly" and has granted their people 1.5x OT and 2.0x Holidays. Our company will not grant that to us, and has now infact, cut that sub-contractor's employee's hours down to 40 per week max to avoid having to pay higher rate hours. They are now "reviewing" our entire job description in an internal investigation to find out if we are salary or hourly.

My first issue is that the people doing the review are all pro-company managers, who are NOT accountants, lawyers, or have any qualifications that I can see to carry this out. My second issue is that pending the outcome of this "investigation" we have now be subject to many rule changes.

Sick time, even though our normal shift is 12 hours, can not be used more than 8 hours at a time (per day out sick), and can not take you over 40 hours in a week. This means a day I was sick last week and took off, which I rarely do, I have lost half of my pay for, despite having 100+ sick hours saved up. If I had come in, I would have been paid 12 hours. I was too sick, so I only get 6, because the other 6 would have put me over 40 hours that week. We have in the past ALWAYS been able to use up to our "expected scheduled shift" worth of sick time per day we call out. After the fact, and after I challenged this with my manager/pay-approver, an email was sent out explaining this new rule.

So, how can you help? Thanks for asking.

I need to know, specific to Southern California, or Government contracts, as much as I can...

A) How can I get a *real* investigation into they payment practices started, by a labor board or such?

B) Is there any recourse you know of, or could see, for me to get my 4 hours sick time. I admit its more of a principle issue than the 4 hours of pay, but I'm really really pissed over it.

C) If our jobs some how are declared truely hourly, is there any precident for possibly getting the past 2 years of my life here reviewed, for a chance at pack pay for all of those 1.5x and 2.0x days I've put in?

I know no one here is a labor lawyer, or my specific lawyer, and I am fully aware I am not one either... but help if you can. Also, note, we are NOT unionized here.

If someone would like more information or to discuss this directly, you can email me at anonymous_2350@randomshit.com. Thanks.

Appropriate salary for a legal conflicts analyst?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:53:57 -0800

I am applying for a job as a legal conflicts analyst, and the employer wants me to list a salary requirement in my cover letter. Problem: I have no idea as to what figure would be appropriate. This is for a branch of a large international law firm in a mid-size city in the northeastern US. The position involves investigation of conflicts of interest. Candidates are required to have a J.D.

I've looked online but haven't had much luck. Help, please?

What does a third year associate make at a small firm in DC?

n'muakolo — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:43:08 -0800

Give me your best guess for what 3rd year associates make in small (1-10 person) for-profit firms in DC? I've looked at lists online and some anecdotal evidence, but still don't have a good handle on this. If my friend is asked to give her salary requirements in an interview at a small for-profit firm in DC, what ballpark should she give? She has been out of law school for 3 years, from a top 15 law school, excellent grades. It looks like maybe $75,000 would be the norm, but I find that sort of hard to believe since there are so many government attorneys in DC, and government attorneys salaries usually range from about $65,000-$120,000, and it's a true 40 hour week. Anecdotes, lists, anything with data welcome.

Wait, you make 50k more than me?

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:14:43 -0800

Can companies prevent you from talking about your salary/benefits? (And a few smaller questions inside) At every company I've work for, the hiring recruiter making the offer says I can't tell anyone about salary/benefits because it's company confidential. When people are discussing something that might even get close to salary (like whether or not most employees make over $10k) or ask where they should invest their 401k, the HR staff jump in and say to close the thread and email them directly with questions. Also, coworkers are fearful of saying how much they make because they don't want to get fired.

I thought I read a law once that said companies can't prevent you from discussing salary/benefits. If there is no such law, then are you not even allowed to tell your spouse or family if the company forbids?

Side question:
If discussing salary is allowed, then can someone tell me what the newgrad salaries for google, yahoo, and amazon.com if you have gotten an offer from them recently? with a M.S.? PhD? I'm planning on getting a job as a newgrad and it would really help to see where the offers I'm getting stand. Emails can go to foo@askmetafilter.endjunk.com

If a salary is listed in a job posting is that code for "non US citizens only"?

freshgroundpepper — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:21:34 -0800

If a salary is listed in a US job posting is that a hidden signal that the job is actually intended for a non-citizen and that I, as a US citizen, shouldn’t bother applying? Obviously this isn't true in all cases, but is it true in the majority of them? I’ve often thought it strange that the majority of jobs with a salary listed seemed be considerably below what I’d consider normal for that position. It could also be that they’re just starting the salary negotiations at a low point and that depending on experience (like most other companies) they’d be willing to move the value up for the right candidate.

Kirth Gerson mentions this in this old thread about jobs on AskMe, but he also says "newspaper", so it could only apply there an not to web postings.

Can anyone cite an employment law that requires companies to list a salary for a position before offering it to non-citizens?

Anyone have experience with an actual company doing this?

(I’ve seen this on Senior/Lead Software Engineering jobs recently, but it’s possible that it applies to other fields and positions as well)

I'm also comparing salaries based on my own experience as well as what I've seen in recent salary surveys (ex. here).

Can they deny me holiday pay?

[insert clever name here] — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:51:38 -0800

I'm a salaried employee; can my employer deny me holiday pay for a 'probationary' period I was never informed about when I started? I started a new job the beginning of October. My offer letter states all the benefits I am eligible for, including holiday pay. All other benefits it gives a time line for when they start (example, 30 days for health insurance, 60 days for paid time off), but holiday pay, it says, and I quote. "You will recieve holiday pay for scheduled holidays provided you worked the full regularly scheduled working day prior to the holiday and the full regularly scheduled working day after the scheduled holiday." End there, no suggestion that it starts after a certain period of time. Now, because of when I started, I will lose a week of pay total because there are 5 paid holidays before the supposed probationary period is up.

Is there any legal recourse? I know employers aren't REQUIRED to pay holiday pay, but this says right in the job offer letter they sent me that they will. Unfortunately, its not signed by either party, as it was a document sent via email. But it should have some validity being sent from our HR department, shouldn't it?

(an unrelated note, to add insult to injury, they are requiring me to come in the weekend FOLLOWING the thanksgiving weekend I don't get paid for to do inventory.)

Lies and the lying employers who tell them.

12XU — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:35:19 -0800

Lies and the lying employers who tell them. Many workers at my small company were given written assurance at the time of our last pay review that we would be enrolled in a health insurance plan on a stated date. Six months later, the promised benefits have not materialized. Do we have any legal recourse? More supporting details: The workforce at our company is about 52 strong. Only around a dozen of us were given notice of our insurance start date in writing, signed by two company officers. We all completed enrollment packages for a Blue Cross HMO program. About a month later when no ID cards and packets arrived in the mail, our payroll office informed us verbally that the plan had been too expensive and was never made active. We are located in Los Angeles County and have no HR department or union.