If you are a 40 hour a week salaried employee and most weeks you work more like 50 if you work less than an 8 hour day occasionally does your employer still have to pay you?

Let me make sure I understand - you are a salaried employee hired to work 40 hours a week. You work 50 hours a week some weeks BUT one of the days is fewer than 8 hours?

Yes that's correct.

I think it would be clearer if you just tell us what exactly happened. How did they calculate your salary? Some companies require you to work a total of 40 hours a week, regardless of how many hours you work a day. But other companies require you to be at your desk 8 hours a day, in addition to the total 40 hours a week. Therefore, even if you put in overtime on one day, it won't get carried over to a second day.

The agreement that most have with their company is that they must work 40 hours a week and unless authorized, you will not earn overtime money. So if you decide to work overtime, that's on you, the company is not obligated to pay you more. However, the requirement of staying at your desk for minimum of 8 hours a day might still be in effect.

Brook, in a word no. You are salaried but you are expected to be at work for at least 40 hours. If you consistently work 50 hours you can approach your employer and ask for more money. However, lets say on Friday you leave at lunch you would be docked a half days pay unless they have comp time, person business time or you were told you could go home by a supervisor.

If you are salaried exempt than if you work any part of the day you must be paid for the entire day. This is the ruling in the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). It is the give and take part of the no overtime for exempt provisions.

You can find the rulings at the Department of Labor site under FLSA.

If the employer deducts for partial days than the exemption will be lost the employee will become an hourly employee and subject to overtime.

An employer should be very careful with partial day deductions against exempt employees' pay, as classifying employees as "salaried exempt" while docking their pay for partial day absences will likely subject an employer to liability for failure to pay overtime compensation for at least the entire time that the policy of partial day deductions has been in place.

Shirley