What ARE the laws regarding overtime with salaried employees?

[Guest rhart]

I am a salaried employee at a non-profit, 501 3 ©, organization.

My "offer for employment" letter stated that I would be paid $25,000 per yr. for 35-40 hours of work a week.

Since starting 4 months ago, my employer told me that, although they don't have an official comp. time program, I would be allowed to use any overtime hours that I put in, at a later date. She told me that if I worked 40-45 hours one week, for example, I could work 30-35 hours the following week, or at a future date of my choosing.

BASED ON THIS, I told her I was going to start building up some extra hours, to be taken off when my family moves... to allow me time to unpack and settle in. She had no problem with this. (6 weeks ago.)

Now that I have spent several weeks putting in lots of extra hours, I talked to her yesterday about using those "built up" hours next month when we move. She suddenly sprang a completely different "rule" on me. She told me that since they don't have an official comp. time program, she cannot allow me to take those extra hours off. Furthermore, she said, since I am a salaried employee, this means I am an "exempt" employee. She said this means that technically they don't have to follow any laws regarding how many hours they can make me work. She said they can work me 50, 60, even 70 hours a week if they want to. She said, "A salaried employee works til the job is done." I told her I understood that to be true, but that most salaried employees also have a project to complete or a certain amount of work to be done in a week.

FYI- my position has never been a salaried position, but always an hourly position. This is because the job is NEVER done... there is ALWAYS more work to do. Technically, there is enough work for me to do that I could go 24-7 and not be "done" working for the week.

My question is: Isn't there some kind of law on how many hours they can truly make me work in any given week? As a salaried employee, can they REALLY keep finding things for me to do and say that is part of my "job?"

My other question is: Can she really change the rules on me like this? Being she TOLD me I would be allowed to put in extra hours and then take them off at a future date, shouldn't that mean that any hours I've accrued up until yesterday SHOULD be able to be taken off? I can understand that if she's changing the rules, that FUTURE overtime hours cannot be counted... but the ones I accrued under our original verbal agreement, should be used as the original rule was stated... shouldn't they?

Maybe these questions aren't "professional" enough for this board.. but I didn't know where else to turn. I have been very frustrated and saddened by what I heard yesterday, and as a single parent, it's enough of a struggle to put in 40 -50 hours per week... I cannot handle more than that just because they "decide" that it will be part of my "pay."

If anyone has an answer or knows the law on this, it would be so appreciated.

RHART

(rebecca@isd.net)

[Medusa]

I don't know if there's a limit on the number of overtime hours or days per week you can be asked to work. I believe this would be more a matter of state law than federal law.

However, you should be asking whether you are properly classified as exempt. The DOL has very strict guidelines about what kind of employees may be considered exempt, e.g. professional designation, supervisory responsibilities, etc. At a place where I used to work, a disgruntled former employee made a complaint to the DOL. They audited and found that almost 90% of the people we'd classified as exempt could not be! They then went back and calculated three years worth of overtime pay for each employee based upon the employee's own representation of their work hours, whether or not track had been kept. Unfortunately, I was one of the ones that they decided was correctly classified as exempt, so no big check for yours truly. In any event, it may be worth a phone call to the DOL to get some information.

[Guest rmg]

I think you will get your best answers from the legal forum at workforce online. Keep in mind that that board is for human resource professionals, so their perspective is that of an employer. Having said that, I do think that you'll get some good answers there. To go there, try this link: http://www.workforce.com/community/forums/....ohtml?node=262

If the link doesn't work, go to workforce.com, then, under "community center" select "topic forums" then select "Legal Forum Hosted by Matt Miklave and Jon Trafimow". And then post your question.

Good luck.

[Guest rmg]

Just wanted to add that Medusa and I must have been putting our replies in at the same time and I didn't want to imply by my post (which was written before I could read hers) that hers was not a great point. As a matter of fact, it is very similar to some of the warnings that I've read at the legal forum. And although I'm sure that rhart will get some good replies here, the legal forum is also a good resource.

Have a good weekend everyone.

[Guest rhart]

Thanks so much to both of you. I appreciate your answers and am going to do some more investigating into this.

I am a little afraid to find out if I am not an exempt salaried employee... partly because the benefit to this right now is that if one of my chidren gets sick, they let me make up the hours later on a different day. (working more hours or on the weekends.) I think I may lose that if I find out I'm not an exempt employee? But, maybe not.

All in all, your replies have proved very valuable, as I continue in my search to find out the legal perimeters of my employment.

Thank you both so much.

Sincerely,

RHart.

[RCK]

I think that two points merit repeating:

1. As pointed out earlier, the issue here may be whether you are exempt or not. If you are exempt, your employer can indeed ask you to work a ton of hours. And you can of course make a bolt for the door (my recommendation).

2. Your supervisor has lied to you. For the two weeks between her original position, and her new rules, it seems to me that you have "accrued" the comp time. Probably not worth fighting about.