Can an employer changepay rate from hour to hour?
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Can an employer changepay rate from hour to hour?
I was hired as director at $12 an hour. A director only needs to be on site a mininmum of 28 hours (I work an average of 36 hours a week). The company is trying to save money and wants to pay me the $12 an hour for the 28 hours and then drop it to $8.50 an hour for anything over that.
Asked on June 5, 2012 under Employment Labor Law, Florida
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
Yes, this is legal: there is no law requiring employees to be paid at the same rate for all the work they do. Unless you have an employment contract setting or guarantying your rate, your employer is free to modify or adjust it at will--including having different rates for different responsibilities or work hours. If you work more than 40 hours in a week and thus earn overtime, your overtime will be based on a weighted average of your rates. For example, say you work 28 hours at $12 per hour and another 20 hours at $8.50 per hour. You would have earned a total of $506 for 48 hours of work, which means your average rate is $10.54 an hour; that's the rate which, in this example, would be used to calculate overtime.
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