I live in WI and work for a Company out of CA, My job is all travel we were originally Salary but were converted years ago to comply with the laws. Up till today when on the road we charged 8 hours against overhead even if we had no work.The policy was you are not home so you were compensated. Today we were told we can only charge hours actually worked and to use the Comp time option at the end of the pay period to get to the required 80 hours if needed. Is this correct ? If I get sent to work at the Plant in CA and they do not have work for the weekends I sit in the hotel and get no pay but I can not go home?
If they fly me to the plant on 8 March through 26 March I have 3 days with no work for a pay period, 4 days total for the trip.
Thanks In Advance

First of all, "salaried" is just a pay method. If you are nonexempt, you do not have to be paid when you are not actually working.

Secondly, "comp time", i.e. time off in lieu of overtime pay, is not permitted for private sector employers.

If they fly me to the plant on 8 March through 26 March I have 3 days with no work for a pay period, 4 days total for the trip.

How did you calculate this? When do you travel, on a regularly scheduled day or on a weekend?

Generally speaking, since you are based in Wisconsin, California labor laws would not apply. Although theoretically, California states that any work time in the state is taxable in the state; implying that California labor laws would also apply. But there is no "bright line" as to how long the assignment must be in order to CA wage and hour laws to kick in. Just in case you were thinking of asking. :)

What kind of business is this and how do you currently earn "comp time"? And what exactly are your duties?

I believe the reason we are "salary non exempt" is that even if we have no work during a pay period we are still paid our "base" salary, It's a good gig. I am just upset with the fact that We don't get compensated and also lose visibility of the weekend days away from home, By loss of visibility I mean when the "bean counters" look at our hours they can not see we were on the road and not sitting at home.

Quote:
If they fly me to the plant on 8 March through 26 March I have 3 days with no work for a pay period, 4 days total for the trip.
How did you calculate this?off our set pay periods
When do you travel, on a regularly scheduled day or on a weekend?Varies depending on the project we have no scheduled days, travel and work days constantly vary

Generally speaking, since you are based in Wisconsin, California labor laws would not apply. Although theoretically, California states that any work time in the state is taxable in the state; implying that California labor laws would also apply. But there is no "bright line" as to how long the assignment must be in order to CA wage and hour laws to kick in. Just in case you were thinking of asking.

What kind of business is this and how do you currently earn "comp time"?Field service supporting a company product, We have never been told how we "earn" "comp time" we just use it to get our hours up to 80 when needed to close a time period And what exactly are your duties? Repair and logistical support

From the sparse description of your duties, I'm thinking nonexempt. That is the key.

"Compensatory time" is something you "earn", although it's probably a semantics issue here because, as I said earlier, comp time in lieu of overtime pay is not permitted to private sector employers.

It's very nice that you have previously been paid when you are not working. However, unless the employer is using the Fluctuating Work Week pay method, it was not required by law. You can read about the FWW here:
http://payroll-taxes.com/articles/fluctuatingWorkweeks.html

Let me ask a couple more questions.

If you take a day off for personal reasons and you don't have any vacation/PTO time to cover it, are you still paid?

Do you receive overtime pay if you work more than 40 hours in a workweek?
If so, is it at time-and-a-half, or half-time?

Do you have a regular work schedule?

I think I will just drop this issue because I do get paid when I am home and if they can stop that I do not want to cause it, I Thank You for your time and have answered your last set of questions. Sorry about the generic response on the job description it may be easy to identify me and the Company I work for if I gave details.
If you take a day off for personal reasons and you don't have any vacation/PTO time to cover it, are you still paid? I have never had to take a day off I do every thing around my schedule

Do you receive overtime pay if you work more than 40 hours in a workweek?Yes we receive overtime over 40 hours
If so, is it at time-and-a-half, or half-time? it is a wacky formula that is actually less the more we work

Do you have a regular work schedule?No we may be off for weeks without work, Originally the plan was 10 on 10 off

Again Thank You for your time

Relative to the overtime, it's very likely they ARE paying you using the FWW method. That does result in a lower rate (half-time only) the more hours you work in the workweek.