here is the situation. i have worked for a company for almost 2 1/2 years. they told me since i was in a management position, that i was salary exempt. i have been reading up on exempt vs non exempt laws and being that i had no rights to hire and fire personnal and only about 20% of my job was directly supervising employees, that i would be concidered non exempt.

i actually dug a bit further and found that the company listed me as a NON EXEMPT employee in the personnal menu screen on the work computer.

also they have docked me pay for a sick day here in there, by hitting my vacation time. if they deduct time, wouldnt that classify me as a nonexempt employee? the other thing, is they deducted a pretty hefty amount of money out of my last paycheck, for what they claimed was "days off" i took in 2006.

here is the tricky part. i am not sure if it would be wise of me to contact a lawyer or just go thru the DOL. if i am due overtime back pay, it would be in the area of almost $30,000.

there has been similar company lawsuits against (deleted) and their service manager position, and the company having to pay overtime.

my old job of 5 years, in the same position kept me at a lower hourly pay just because they knew that my position requires 10+ hours a week in overtime.

please if anyone has any advice, id really appreciate it.

The Exempt rules changed in 2004. The old 20% rule has not existed since then. The current Exempt classification rules can be found at:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm

"Docking" legally means reducing the actual salary paid to the Exempt Salaried employee. The next webpointer will discuss the Exempt Salaried rules, including those for docking.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_541/29CFR541.602.htm

The reduction of benefit hour balances in response to time not worked is NOT a violation of federal rules, and is mostly not a violation of state rules. Federal DOL has issued many opinion letters on this topic to that effect.

Your big issue is your Exempt classification. If you are incorrectly classified, then you may indeed have a possible claim for your unpaid overtime. I am going to let other people on this website address what is your best course of action (not my area of expertise).