Legal Question in Employment Law in Georgia

At my current job we were paid a daily rate or salary for every day we worked during the week. Being full-time that was always 5 days. Our hours were also tracked and anything over 40 we were paid by "chinese overtime." At no point did we ever work 40 or under. In fact we were told by supervisors and management that our daily salary was for a 10 hour shift. Is this legal? Also they just changed us to hourly but again they took our daily rate and multiplied it by 5 and then divided it by 45 hours to get an hourly rate. Many of my fellow associates believe this is wrong.


Asked on 7/29/15, 2:51 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Michael Caldwell DeLong, Caldwell, Bridgers & Fitzpatrick LLC

It is legal as long as they are paying you an additional 50% of your hourly rate for all hours you work in excess of 40 hours, and are paying 150% of your hourly rate for all the hours you work in excess of the 45 hours which your salary covers. However, if you were paid a daily rate then you were not salaried. to be genuinely salaried, your pay can not go down if you miss time during the week. And just because you were salaried does not mean that you were not entitled to overtime pay. You must be both genuinely salaried, and your job duties must fit into one of the exempt classifications: Professional (the narrowest) Executive, or Administrative. Each of the exemptions is very carefully defined in the law and in the regulations which apply the law. There are also a number of additional exemptions (e.g., radio announcers, newsboys, some computer professionals, etc.) If the employer mistakenly has paid you as if you were exempt and you were not, and if you worked more than 40 hours in a 7 day pay period, the employer can be required to pay you double the amount that it underpaid you. And the employer has to pay your attorneys fees. I handle a lot of these cases.

You can reach me at 404-979-3154.

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Answered on 7/31/15, 7:46 pm


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