no pay only to hourly employees due to fire at building?

Question

I work for a large company. Most of the employees are on payroll but some of the lower-pay employees like Admin Assistants (me), are hourly and have to clock in and out. We had a fire in the building Monday and weren't able to work half of Monday or all of Tuesday. I came by the building over and over trying to see if I could work, and we weren't cleared to enter yet.
Now the rumor is that salaried employees are going to get paid, and hourly ones are not. Is this legal? is it discrimination?

Everyone seems to be saying the same thing, but I wonder: If salaried employees get paid whether they work or not, why do they have to take a day of vacation when they take a day off?

We're being told now that we can take a day of vacation if we want to be paid for the day. If that is the case, it seems that the salaried people should have to too... We earn vacation at the same rate as the salaried people.

Answer 1

As an hourly employee you get paid for the hours you work. If you are called in to work then I believe you get paid a minimum of 4 hours.

Now, if there was a fire they would have informed you to not report to work for the next few days. Then they do not need to pay you because you didn't do any work.

Salaried employees have a contract with the company and get paid if they work or not. Although they get paid every day they also get no overtime pay. They have agreed to complete their responsibilities no matter how many hours it takes them.

If you have vacation or sick days then you can use them.

Sorry your company had a fire. See if there are things you can "volunteer" for to get paid, like helping to clean up the office.

Since this is still a rumor, you need to wait and see what the company desides to do. Although they don't have to pay you they might decide to anyway.

Answer 2

I think you need to disect the wording of what people have said and ask yourself if they are trying to make you angry or jealous.

Salaried people are paid on a yearly basis but divided by 2 payments per month, usually the 15th and 30th paydays. They are paid by service and not by project. If they are asked to work overtime or weekends they don't get any more money than that yearly figure. They do get some benefits though, like paid outings and education and maybe conventions they attend being paid for. These people fill out a different application for employment and usually require a college degree or higher and specialized education for the job they are in, and their work is judged differently by their superiors, and they carry a lot of personal responsibility, and responsibility over people.

Hourly employees are paid by the hour, and if they do overtime they get paid time and a half after working so many hours. They have responsibility over the work they are given (and not over people).

If you were told salaried employees would be paid, then that's a given, they would because they are paid on a total yearly income, and not because they stayed around or didn't stay around or worked or not worked after a fire. So this is reasonable.

You sounded angry or jealous because you thought they were making more money than you because of the fire situation. While in reality they were making more money because of the job they hired into and have and not because of any fire. So the rumor was misunderstood.

Answer 3

No, this is not illegal. It is, in fact, the very difference between hourly and salary empoyment. A salaried employment means that you get paid your salary regardless of the hours you work. Hourly employment means you are paid according to the amount of time you work. While this seems unfair in your situation, if the entire office were forced to work a 60 hour week to catch up on work, you would be paid overtime and salaried employees would not.

If this were not due to something outside the control of the empoyer (for example, they started sending you home at 3 every day to cut costs) then there would be a small chance that they are violating some term of your contract. But the deal you have is that you work, and they pay you according to the amount of time you work. You haven't been working, so they're not obligated to pay you.

Answer 4

Unfortunately, it is legal. As a non-exempt (hourly) employee, you are not "guaranteed" a salary. The upside to being non-exempt is that you do get paid for all hours worked, even at a premium if it's overtime. Exempt employees are more or less guaranteed a salary but do not have the luxury of getting paid for all hours worked. In most cases, if a salaried employee works in excess of 40 hours, they will still get paid for 40.

This is all covered under the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA).

Answer 5

By definition, hourly employees get paid only for the time they work. If you worked 1/2 of Monday, you should get paid for that time. It is legal and not discrimination. That being said, there is nothing to prevent the company from paying its hourly employees as if they had worked as a good faith gesture since it was no fault of theirs that they were unable to work.
Good luck!

Answer 6

The law requires a salaried employee to be paid regardless of hours worked. An hourly worker is only paid for hours worked but gets overtime while a salaried employee does not.

A salaried employee is paid to be at the beck and call of the employer whether it is for one hour or 75 hours. It is presumed that a salaried worker will work AT LEAST 40 hours per week, but the company takes the risk that they will work less. Salaried workers may or may not get paid, but their pay has nothing to do with hours worked. It is likely they will get paid but they may not. Salaried workers salary is theoretically fixed, but many employers as a matter of practice will dock the salary of any salaried worker who works less than 40 hours.

As an addition to my prior post, taking vacation time is a way to smooth your income. You did not work your hours. It is not your fault, but you did not work your hours. It is possible the salaried workers will not get paid either, or that some of them will not get paid. An hourly worker gets paid per hour worked regardless of the cause of additional hours or fewer hours. A salaried worker gets paid for being employed regardless of time worked. They take vacation in order to be permitted to be free from being called by their employer. An hourly worker takes vacation to cover the cost of hours not worked. In other words, a salaried employee takes time away from their salaried duties and they are not required to put in labor at the demand of the employer. An hourly worker is only being paid for hours worked. Had you not had vacation you could still take time off unpaid. You might be fired, but you are not required to support the firm with an unlimited amount of uncompensated time.

The fact that you earn vacation at the same rate is irrelevant. They could earn it twice as fast or half as fast, it would be irrelevant to whether or not you worked specific hours on Monday and Tuesday. Most salaried workers would beg to be hourly workers as salaried workers do not get compensated for their time.

Answer 7

The key word in this whole scenario is the word "rumor".....at this point, that's all it is right? Don't freak out until you know for SURE this is true. I would contact your immediate supervisor, to "check in and see what the situation is". Let them tell you about the pay situation. If it IS true, it doesn't seem like it could be legal......but for a definitive answer on that one you would need to contact an attorney.

Answer 8

1st let me say, don't belive any rumors.
Salaried employes get paid as the company see's fit, this also gos for the hourly employees, check with your union, if you don't have a union then it's really up to the company.