As a General Manager, should I be paid a salary?
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As a General Manager, should I be paid a salary?
I am currently a General Manager of a food service based company. I am in charge of the daily operations as well as hiring and terminations. I am also required to take phone calls and handle
store issues on my own time. The company adds an extra hour of pay a week but that doesn’t always cover the time I spend handling things. I am an hourly wage so if I am not clocked in at the store then I am not being paid.
Asked on July 24, 2017 under Employment Labor Law, Kentucky
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
1) There is no law requiring that a manager be salaried; an employer can pay you an hourly basis if it likes. Certainly, it is common to pay managers a salary, but it is not illegal to pay them hourly.
2) However, based on what you write, you are being underpaid and may have a wage claim against your employer (and it would likely be better for them to make you salaried):
a) Hourly employees must be paid for ALL time worked. So if you spend more time working than the extra hour they pay you, they are violating the law (e.g. the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA) and you could seek the back pay you should have received.
b) Hourly employees are not exempt from overtime: you should have been receiving overtime (time-and-a-half) for all time worked past 40 hours in a week. You may therefore be owed back overtime.
Contact the Dept. of Labor to file a wage-and-hour complaint; they should be able to help you. If they don't, you could sue your employer for the money they should have paid (based on the hours you worked) but didn't.
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