Anyone want to give advice?
I was looking at my recent McDonalds paystub and I was shocked to find that my pay rate had dropped down to the pay rate of new workers. My manager did not give me any notification for this drop and as far as I know, other workers have not seen a drop in their pay rate.
so I’m wondering, who do I go to for an explanation? If it’s the General manager, does the manager have the right to change a payrate without notification? or is this an exercise in fuitility?
Isn’t it more likely a mistake than an intentional adjustment? Have you asked the manager?
Yes your employer can lower your rate of pay, that is unless you have a union contract or something similar.
It’s very unprofessional not to at least notify you. Please note that if you get the pay rate lowered enough you may be eligible for unemployment if you quit. Now you may not, it depends on a large number of factors and the state you’re in, so don’t quit. But it may be worth an email to your state labor board, “wages and hours” division.
Don’t just assume that it’s an exercise in futility and do nothing about it. The best thing is to assume it’s a mistake and ask the manager about it. At worst, you’ll find out that it was deliberate, but at least then you know how little they think of you, and you can at least start looking for another job (while continuing with this one).
More than unprofessional, illegal. While you may not have an employment contact, you’re working on the premise that they’re going to pay you the agreed upon rate of pay. Changing that on an ex-post-screw-you basis for hours you worked believing you were being compensated for them at a higher rate is not a legal employement practice and shows a complete lack of good faith. IANAL
You should: Notify your supervisor and suggest to him that you call HR immediately. If its a mistake, you should allow them to correct it and move on without being a stick in the mud about it. If its not and they tell you that’s your new rate of pay, you should inform them in good faith thet you believe that’s illegal to do and that you plan to ask the wage & hour division about it, while being careful NOT to appear like you’re extorting them to pay you more. You should then do just that, and I suspect that wage & hour will demand they pay you the difference ASAP and either restore your pay or provide you with written notice before the pay cut takes effect, giving you the choice to work for that rate of pay or not.
They seem to be trying it in California
Do you have a cite for that? I’m asking because I run payroll at work and from time to time I’ve mentioned lowering someones rate (totally as a joke, not serious in anyway) and they always tell me it’s illegal. In all my looking I’ve never been able to find the relevant laws on it…at least in Wisconsin. I tend to take what employees say about the law with a grain of salt since a lot of them seem to think they know everything. I’ve also been told that, by law, we are required to give them a half hour break. Nope, not in Wisconsin we’re not. But lowering the wages, I haven’t been able to find thing one way or the other on that. I even had someone in law school try to find it and he couldn’t.
In Wisconsin you wouldn’t even half to quit. In certain circumstances you are eligible for UI even if you still hold your job but are making less money (though without looking it up I think it’s for people who have to take a hour reduction not a rate reduction).
They can’t drop your rate of pay without telling you your going to be paid less from this point forward. It sounds like you just had an accounting screw up and these things happen. You immediately tell the manager about it if payroll isn’t handled at your site.
IANA Lawyer …
There are two distinct question here and we need to make sure we’re answering the right one:
Can they lower your rate of pay effective at some time in the future, provided they tell you in advance, even with notice as short as “effective tomorrow?” Pretty good odds the answer is Yes for non-contract employees in most of the USA.
Can they lower your rate of pay, not tell you, not plan to ever tell you, and have you unwittingly work however long (maybe months) at the lower rate before you happen to notice? Odds are that’s explicitly prohibited in more states than the first case. If nothing else you could make a decent case for constructive fraud in all 50 states.
There is a lot less regulation of hourly labor in the USA than most people assume. There has been a lot of customary treatment that becomes *de facto *the way things are done at most companies most of the time. But that doesn’t make it legally mandatory at every company every time.
An interesting question is whether the employee handbook (“this is not a contract, it binds only the employee, not the company”; we’ve all seen them) for McD’s says you agree that they can reduce your pay without notice at any time. Might be a good idea to get that out and read it.
Regardless of the legal hairsplitting, the right business thing to do is ask the boss ASAP & you both get on the phone with HR to straighten out if it was a mistake or deliberate, and if deliberate, how & why you weren’t told in advance.
I’m not certain, but it might come under the “open-ended contract” effectively. In msot states, you don’t have a real contract to work, which means either party can leave easily. However, there’s still an implicit contract that you will indeed be paid a certain rate, barring notice otherwise. That can be enforced, IIRC. The employer made you an offer to work indefinitely until notice at a certain rate.
Of course, I’m going off a bit of law I studied specifically in business school, and this particular scenario didn’t come up.
IA definitely NAL but I was very surprised anyone thought it might be legal to lower one’s wage retroactively without notification. You never get a higher bill in a restaurant because they raised the prices after you’d looked at the menu and ordered, do you?
The idea of legal contract is common-sense. I realize that courts have replaced some of the common-sense with protections (and employment for plaintiff lawyers), but refusing to pay agreed wages in the absence of employee malfeasance? I’m very doubtful.
Are you calling being paid today for last weeks work ‘retroactive’ (just clarifying).
Also, if it makes any difference, Wisconsin is an ‘at will’ state.
Since the OP is looking for advice, this is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Yes. I don’t know whether an employer can lower your wage on future work at any time for any reason, but it defies my common-sense of contract that they can pay a lower rate for work already performed at an agreed rate.
That means they can inform you at any time that they will pay zero for any future work, right? Perhaps I misunderstood; I thought the issue was paying a new rate on work already performed.
I’m not sure if it means they can pay you nothing, per se. My understanding is that you can quit or be fired for any reason or no reason at all.
You say: Come work for me, 8-5, Monday through Friday, I’ll give you an hour for lunch and pay you $12/hr. Payday is every Friday.
Employees says: Great, I accept!
Each morning, Employees shows up at work, does the job, so on and so forth. Friday rolls around and Employee sees on the check that you’ve paid on $10/hr (before tax withholding).
There is no statute on point, because this is covered by the common-law of contract. An offer of employment was made. It was accepted, both orally and by performance. Consideration passed between the parties: labor for promise of payment at a specified wage.
Failure to live up to this is an actionable breach.
But, Wisconsin is an at-will employment state, you say! That is not a defense to breach. That only means that the Employee is not entitled to presume that the tenure of employment is indefinite in duration. Yes, you can say, “I’ll keep you around, but I’ve gotta pay you less going forward.” But you cannot unilaterally reduce the rate of compensation for work already performed.
That answers the OP (and I know my question was drifting off topic) but is it legal for me to say, in the same basic situation: “Hey employee, starting next week you only earn $10.00/hr” I’ve had people tell me it’s illegal, so far I haven’t found any proof one way or the other.
Generally, that’s A-OK (unless there is an employment contract that sets the duration of employment and rate of compensation, as a collective bargaining agreement would). You also must pay at least the minimum wage under federal and state law.
That is a little different in that they are:
a) Currently working without a contract and
b) Telling them in advance.
I’m not sure about the whole “months of paying people with IOU’s” however.
My gf’s union most certainly has a contract, and they most certainly did last year when this came up, and instead of the minimum wage, “furloughs” amounting to a 15% pay cut before taxes were arbitrarily implemented.