I work for a fortune 500 company and my job position is a Product Engineer. I was hired on as a non-exempt employee with the title of Product Engineer and base pay with the ability to work overtime. With the overtime I make well above a 6 figure salary. Management states that they are going to start forcing employees to become exempt at the sametime work the hours like I have been doing as a non-exampt which are around 65hrs - 80hrs/week. The converstion from non-exempt to exempt will be with a very little pay increase if any. I wanted to know can a company force you to become a exempt employee?

Yes unless you have a written contract with them. Of course you can try to discuss the proper pay, normally far less than what you get when paid over time ( thus why they don't normally pay engineers hourly and have them on salary)

Just to be clear, the word force was used. So they have the right to terminate my position if I say no?