I am here for my wife, she is the store manager for a small pool company. She went out on her maternity leave, and to get around from paying her they took her off of salary and put her as hourly. Then told her they were not paying her for her time off... I know they reserve the rights to not pay you, but was it legal for them to knock her down to hourly from salaried? Because if she was salaried she would have been paid the whole time... thanks in advance.

There is nothing in the law that says the company must pay the employee while on maternity leave at all. And if this employer doesn't have at least 50 employees at her store or within a 75-mile radius, they aren't subject to the FMLA or the California equivalent.

Is she working short hours, or off altogether? Has she been certified as disabled by her physician? If so, there are some other options for her.

Does her employer convert salaried employees who go out on short term disability or take extended medical leaves of absence to hourly?

Does her employer have 15 or more employees?

I know they don't have to pay her for the time off. I am more interested in the fact that they dropped her from a salaried management position to a hourly associate. They have about 20 associates, and she is the first one to go out on a fmla basis. But to help them out she only took off 4-1/2 weeks and went back because they were not getting any billing sent out. So they asked her to come back to help out, so she did. She only came back because they told her when she went out they would pay her while she was out. Then when she just got her recent paycheck it was way way wrong.

When she confronted them they said they researched it while she was gone and didn't have to pay her. But after talking to another business owner, we found out it was illegal for him to drop her to hourly without talking to her. He did this because when you are salaried you are paid no matter what when you are out... so he put her on hourly in order to get around it. I told her to go to the labor board on Monday morning and turn him in.

Actually, no, it is not inherently illegal to drop her to hourly with or without talking to her. I don't know where your other business owner got his information but he is wrong. Any employee can be legally made non-exempt (hourly). Microsoft could make Bill Gates hourly if they wanted to.

However, whether this is intended to be permanent or temporary factors in. Your friend is right that they can't keep changing her back and forth from week to week to avoid paying full salary (or overtime). But there is nothing illegal about making a permanent change.

It also matters how they would be treating the situation if she had a non-pregnancy medical condition. If they would be doing exactly the same thing for a similarly situated employee with pneumonia, that's fine. If it's ONLY because she's pregnant, that's not.

The other business owner told us that because it happened to him. One of his associates went to the labor board and they came after him. He said he lost big and he learned alot that he didn't know. It was his advice to us for her to turn them into the labor board. But there is alot of shady business going on in his company that he will have to answer for. He pays his associates under the table for overtime, so if they pull all his records and see the time cards with overtime and then see the paychecks with out overtime pay it will raise a flag. But that is not the reason she is going, it is going to be because of the salary to hourly changing. And alot of the reason of her being on salary is to get out of paying overtime, she puts in on average 50 - 60 hours a week and only gets paid for 40. So she is losing out in th elong run, but that comes along with being salaried.

Sounds more like a double standard to me than any thing. Salary okay so long as she is working the excessive hours that the employer benefits from. Then when it would be to her advantage she suddenly becomes hourly. By all means have her go to the labor board and let the laws in Maryland be made clear to both yourselves and the employer.

On a side note and just to safisfy my curosity Patty what does California FMLA have to do with someone from Maryland? I am still learning much from the responders here so please don't think I am making a personal attack on you it is a simple question. No offense intended.

On a side note and just to safisfy my curosity Patty what does California FMLA have to do with someone from Maryland? No offense intended.

Um, because the previous post I responded to was California and I screwed up? :o :rolleyes: