Can an employeer cut a salary employees pay and move them to an hourly position because of being absent with out any kind of warning first?

Before getting an answer to that, please explain the absences, whether the absences were covered/approved, etc. Also the relationship of the employer-employee. Thank you.

For every absence she has had a doctors excuse, her kids were sick. This absence inparticular, her father has cancer and is dying. He was moved from the hospital to a hospice house. The absence wasn't approved or disapproved when the employer was notified the employee wouldn't be at work. The employer called her in the office and said they could fire her or cut her wages $2.50 per hour and change her from salary to an hourly employee. She started working for this company in October 2006.

As a salaried employee, does she have a contract? If she does not have a contract, the employer may be within the labor laws to do this. But she really needs to check with her own state's Dept of Labor and ask what the laws in her state are and what can she do about the changes.

The absences are nothing she obviously planned for - how could one prepare for illness and in the case of her Father, his cancer and moving to a hospice? Has she kept documentation of all these things? She may also want to contact the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Best of all to her.

Yes unless you have a contract most likely they can, and even then it may be in the contract to let them to do so. The co. may be exposing themselves to risk of a lawsuit but generally they can and will do anything they wish.

If there is no contract then she is an at will employee and could be fired, demoted, wages lower without cause. However, if she were a member of a protected class, and the change was due to her class, she could go to labor board and file a discrimination claim.

Unless there is a union contract or unless there is some employment contract an employee can have their status changed, or their hourly or annual pay changed at any time the company wanted, My past company lowered our pay 6 times over 4 years, now they did that to all employees of the same status ( position)

They can not do it because she is a women, or because of her race or because of he religion and other protected class.

But normally "giving warnings" is merely a company policy and there is no requirement. The only other situation would be if the company treated another employee in the same situation differently, if they created a past performance example of what would be done, then they may be held to that standard

So for example she is first a new employee, less than a year with the company. If she was there long enough to be eligible for FMLA then she could have applied for that longer term leave