Legal Question in Employment Law in Iowa

I am a Student Manager for my University's football team. My compensation is directly through tuition and it is set up to gradually increase each year I work there. My first year I received $1,023 per semester, a total of $2,046. This money went straight to my tuition, and payed about a fourth of the total I owed for the whole year.. This past season was my 2nd year and I received around $2,000 per semester. This gradual increase is supposed to equal a full scholarship on my last year as a manager. My question is if this is fair payment? I work 2PM-7PM Tuesday-Friday, 11AM-5PM on Sundays, and I work 7AM-4PM on Saturday's with home games and I am gone working from 11AM Friday morning until late Saturday night when we have away games. Having taken weekly hour averages from my first year as a manager, I would have worked approximately 500 hours that season and received a total of $1,023/semester. $2,046/500 hours = $4.00/hour.. Being paid by Iowa's minimum wage law as of July 2009, I would have earned around $3,600 for those hours, about a $1,500 difference. Keep in mind, those are only the set hours that I accounted for. That does not include at least another 100 hours of random work times throughout the season and at least another 100 hours out of season. Factoring those hours in would put my estimated total to 600 hours which would be $2,046/600 = $3.40/hour.. Minimum wage would then put what I should have earned at $7.25 x 600 hours = $4,350. Over $2,300 more than I was compensated.

Clearly these numbers show that myself and the other 6 managers who joined me the same year were paid, and are still being paid, thousands of dollars below the legal minimum wage. Is this an issue or is it something that I have to take on and accept as student? Is it possible for me to bring up a case with the University, which is state funded, to demand fair payment for my work? Thank you!


Asked on 3/07/11, 7:53 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Luedeman solo practitioner

What was your agreement? You're receiving tuition for your services and you agreed to it. If you do not like the terms and conditions, your remedy is to leave the job and start paying tuition like everyone else.

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Answered on 3/09/11, 8:06 am


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