I am salaried (exempt) not hourly. As part of COVID my company is making employees take furlough days. Thing is they are requiring someone to be on call during the furlough andif anyone objects they say it is part of the job description. To exemplify, Let’s say I make $200 per day and the company gets furloughed Thursday. Someone still needs to be on call Thursday but they only get paid $800 for that week. Considering the FLSA has some interesting rules on furloughing exempt emplyees and deducting their pay, is that even legal?
IANAL but I doubt it. I’ve been in situations where the company forced us to use vacation days for a week, if we had them, and take time off without pay if we didn’t. In those cases we were not supposed to be working. You wouldn’t get in trouble for checking your email, but we had no responsibilities.
Furlough, without pay, means furlough I’d think.
But given the unemployment rate I think companies probably feel they can treat employees like shit again.
This is probably true. It sounds to me like you have a case (I am also not a lawyer) but your employer is probably figuring you won’t risk your job to pursue it.
Or figuring that you won’t just be a pain in the ass about it. I’ve had employers who thought “salaried” meant you worked a minimum of 45 hours a week, when they weren’t even paying median salaries for the work. I frankly told my boss “If you don’t think I can screw off and not work for 5 hours every week without you noticing, you’re sorely mistaken.” Our schedules weren’t changed.
But, to put that in perspective, the worst thing that was going to happen to me after leaving that job was going to be that I would be paid better for less work and less freedom. That happened about two years later after they pissed off the only other guy that did my job in his performance review, and he walked then and there. So, I decided I wasn’t sticking around for much more of their shit after they pissed off the guy who I thought actually was a team player, and I brazenly just worked really half ass for about two months until I found another job I would probably like better than pissing off them for a living (where the other guy who did my job was also being hired). Those cheapskates weren’t hiring another person who could do my job at that rate, and my position was essential to the business, so they weren’t going to fire me. I knew it was true at the time, and had it confirmed when they paid one of my friends more than double to do the job.
So, maybe don’t be as direct about the situation as I was there, but if nothing else, grab the hours back here and there.