Hello,
I am a payroll clerk for a Native American (Sovereign Nation, we don't have to follow state laws) casino company. I am also a tribal member. My question is, I know that a payroll clerk does not fall into the salaried employee requirements but my supervisor is talking about forcing me to become salaried. I regularly work 15 to 20 hours overtime a pay period and I don't want to lose the pay. He's also hinted at finding someone that will accept the salaried position if I refuse. What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Shannon

My understanding is that the laws that define who can be labeled exempt from overtime are federal and not state. I am not knowledgeable on tribal laws however so don't know if they apply here as well. Are there any tribal labor laws that do apply to you or is there any government entity that you can consult?

I did a quick Google search with the terms - tribal labor laws, overtime, casino

This is the link to one of the articles that came up and it may give you something to go on.

www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?

From the articles I saw it didn't seem clear that federal overtime laws applied but you might either call or email someone at the US labor department wage and hour division to confirm.

Is your supervisor looking to pay you more money for becoming salaried or is this just an opportunity to cut the pay?

Good luck

Ok, first why can't the position be a salary position, many positions can be defined as a salary position if the company only changes a few of the specifications.

And as a salary employee I often made less per hour than employees working for me, if I worked a lot of long hours. That is one of the issues with being salary.


They can call you a payroll supervisor, or accounting supervisor, you stop clocking in and our ( management can not clock in and out) your don't get paid overtime but you also don't get pay cut if you take off work either.
TN state law ( which is not relevant in your case) demands that to be salary you have to be paid ( @ 22000) a year. (I looked that figure up about two months ago, that figure is close but not exact)

So for someone getting paid 22000 a year that is 423 dollars a week or if you work 60 hours a week.

A hourly employee making overtime on the 60 hours would earn the same money at about 6 dollars a hour.

But of course this is why casinos move to Indian reservations because first the gambling laws don't apply, and other Federal Laws don't apply.

In some cases the tribal government make some blanket laws that accept and adapt some US laws.

You can ask your tribal government representitive about this issue, but even in the US government areas, most business are free to change pay scales, for example if they had been paying you 8 dollars a hour, they can tell you next week that you will only be making 7 dollars a hour

And if they meet the requirements for salary they can change you to salary if you want it or not.