IANAL but I don’t think it matters whether she ‘chooses’ to work more hours or not. If she’s working overtime, she’s entitled to overtime pay. I think the boss is assuming that she’ll be happy with the pay and won’t complain, but if things go south, she could contact departments of labor to sort this out and she, as well as others, might be entitled to back pay. Not to mention, underpayment of wages also means underpayment of taxes. Seems like your boss is taking risks that aren’t necessary. I also highly doubt that she’s as productive as she could be working that hard and long.
Further clarification: my sister is soft OCD: a keeper of meticulous records with a hoarder’s approach to receipts and stubs etc. So when comes the time, that’s covered.
Yes, but what is a mazerati?
A fake sold on Manhattan sidewalks, next to the guy selling Rolix watches.
If she’s exempt she may not be eligible for overtime. She may know whether or not she is classified as exempt. If she isn’t sure she could ask, but to determine if an exempt status is appropriate we would need to know:
-Salary Basis: Is she paid a salary or hourly? If she’s paid a salary she can be exempt
-Duties: Are her duties professional, administrative, executive, outside sales, or computer related? If yes she can be exempt
-Does she make at least $684/week or $35,568 annually? If yes she can be exempt.
Also if she is a contractor and not an employee, she isn’t entitled to overtime.
If any one of those three tests is not passed, she cannot be exempt, so if all three are passed, she could be an exempt employee.
Exempt employees are not entitled to overtime, or even any compensation at all for working more than 40 hours in a week. However many employers will offer exempt employees “straight pay” for overtime hours, or will sometimes issue special bonuses, allow the accrual of comp time etc etc. Those are basically offered as incentives to the employee, but are not legally required at a Federal level. “Straight pay” for hours worked over 40 for exempt employees just means what it sounds like–the pro-rated “hourly rate” that they’d earn if they were an hourly employee, is added as additional pay to their paycheck for those excess hours worked.
Note: States have additional overtime laws which can go beyond the Federal standards.
If Illinois is like my province in Canada -
You are exempt from overtime if you are an administrator. There’s a list of what would qualify you as one - do you manage other employees can you set your own schedule (within reason), do you work with confidential employee records for your company, what range of administrative responsibilities (ie. responsible for cash management, open the store or lock up, etc.)
The logic is that for people who are actual higher-up administrators, they can be called upon erratically to handle situations sometimes outside of business hours. (“Good morning! It’s 3AM and the alarm is going off” or “Help. The store is flooding from a broken pipe!”)
You are exempt from overtime as a contractor - but the qualifications also are more complex. As a contractor, you either work for multiple enterprises, you set your own hours and/or other work tasks, etc. This is more risky for an employer, because in the USA and Canada the employer then does not handle taxes - they simply pay an agreed upon contract rate; but should the government decide that the person is wrongly classified, and should be an employee, there will be assorted penalties for failing to deduct income tax, social security (CPP and UIC in Canada), etc.
The point being, anyone who fails to pay their employees properly is begging for a crackdown by authorities with assorted fines and back pay due. Unless, this guy has figured out that one particular employee will put up with it without trouble.