If you have a signed contract for a set salary, can you tell employee you want to pay them hourly due to lake of money coming into the companey?

You can change a salaried position to an hourly position there are no restrictions on making any employee hourly.

The salaried exemption is an exemption from overtime in the FLSA act. (Fair Labor Standards Act).

You must be given notice of the change before any work has been done at the new salary to give you a chance to refuse to work at the new salary and find other employment. You must be paid your currect wage for any work that has been done before the new wage goes into effect.

If you go from salaried to hourly you must also be paid overtime at time and a half your regular wages.

Do you know if your amount is being cut or only your hours? Your wages could stay the same but the hours reduced. This is why most salaried positions are converted back to hourly .

If your salary is not being cut you can find out by dividing your current salary on your contract by 2080 to find your hourly wage. If you hourly wage is the same your salary is not being cut just your hours.

This is saying I do not have enough work to keep you busy all the time so I am converting the position to hourly to accommodate the slow down of work. It is legal to do this as long as you are told ahead of time.

Shirley

No our employer is changing us from hourly to salaried to make us work longer hours. But not pay us if we take a day off or need to leave early one day. I thought no matter how long you work whether its 45 hours or 32 he still has to pay you the same salary. He switched one of our employees back and forth from salaried to hourly just so he didn't have to pay her sick time. Is that legal?

No this is not right either the employee is hourly or salaried. This position needs to be looked at and put into the correct category and stay there.
You can contact the Department of Labor , describe your work duties and ask them to classify your position. They will send a letter to your employer and tell the employer how your position should be classified and it will have to be always paid with that classification.

Shirley

So if he changes me to salaried. I am Accounts Payable and Recievable I also do payroll. Would he have to pay me 40 hours if I called in sick one day or left early for personal reasons. Or can he deduct it from my hours?

It depends on if he has you classified as salaried exempt or salaried non exempt. I can tell you now that if you do payroll and accounts payable you are salaried non exempt and should be paid hourly and paid overtime for all hours over 40 in a week. He can pay you salary non exempt but he still has to pay overtime for all hours over 40 in a week.

I know this for a fact because for 8 years I was Accounts payable and payroll at my job. We fought over the classification and I was fineally classified as hourly non exempt.

The DOL was classify this job as hourly non exempt

Non exempt are not paid for sick time off or leaving early.

Well I really appreciate the information. He has us working 7:30am to 4:30pm with a 30 minute lunch break that comes out of our pay and two fifteen minute breaks which also come out of our pay. I thought the employer was responsible for the two 15 minute breaks. So technically I am working 2.5 extra hours each week if that is the case. He told us if we were salary he could keep us as long as he needs us and not pay OT. My other question is... How do we find out if we are salaried non exempt or exempt. One of my project managers who is salaried every other week it seems because he keeps switching her back and forth asked me. Would it be on her pay stub?

No exempt or non exempt status probably does not show on the pay stub. Most of the time if you are salaried they are calling you exempt. If you are hourly they are calling you non exempt. It is possible to pay salaried to non exempt but not recommended.

If you are paid overtime for hours over 40 than you are non exempt. If you are not paid overtime than you are being considered exempt.

Unless all criteria is met for the exempt category it is illegal to classify as exempt. What could happen if the DOL reclassifies is any and all overtime will be paid to the employee by the employer and they can go back several years. The employer can also be fined and penalized.

You have to contact the DOL and ask them to help you obtain a correct classification exempt vs Non exempt for the job and let them know the flip flopping of the classification and that more than one employee is involved. This is a huge priority with them right now and they will investigate.

Shirley