Hello. For the sake of naming my company, I'm going to refer to it as JankX (hopefully there is nobody or no company named JankX). I am not sure which forum is the correct forum to post in, and couldn't find an FAQ. Please move it if it is necessary.

I work in a retail environment. I receive a wage based paycheck and on top of that a small commission for online sales. Basically, if we do not have it in the store, and we refer the customer to the computer where they can order it, the employee gets a small commission. HOWEVER: When the customer returns an item that was bought, the commission earned off the item is deducted from the overall bonus. On the paycheck, the details are split up into Hourly wage, and then in a separate category, the commissions you would earn. Two pay periods I did not make many online sales and customers returned many items. As a result, the commission statement was NEGATIVE. This was subtracted from my hourly wage. Is this legal? Technically I'm not getting paid my hourly rate if they make that kind of deduction right? I talked to the corporate human resource line which they told me to talk to MY HR manager and/or store manager. My HR manager said "she can't make any promises" about being reimbursed for the amount of money they withheld but she'd "see what she could do". She still has not taken any action on it.

Second off, I am a witness in a safety complaint. Three weeks ago I was stopped by my store's loss prevention team, and was accused of stealing. What had happened was, I bought a product, but put the other one back, and walked out of the store. LP thought I stole an extra product. I was stopped in the parking lot of my store (which my store does not own) and requested to show the receipt of the items I had purchased. I complied, and also showed them another product I had bought a few hours earlier, to which they were oblivious I had even bought it. I am incredibly insulted that they stopped me, they insulted my integrity. I was so mad I wanted to quit. I have a strong feeling this is in retaliation to the safety complaint I was a witness apart of. Is there any legal action I can take against the company I work for? The big issue is I do not have any evidence of the LP manager stopping me. There was one other person from LP. I've made my supervisor aware, my operations manager aware, and my store manager aware of the situation in the hopes of getting an apology, but they don't seem to be taking too much of an interest. One coworker even said she thought she overheard them talking about how they were lucky I didn't sue them. My managers insist they have the right to stop me at any time, but after working there for seven months, I'd think my integrity would not be an issue.

Is there anything I can do? Am I just a victim of working with (idiots)?

I can respond to the commision question only. The other question is outside my area of expertise.

Based on what you do and where you work, for each workweek, you must be paid at least minimum wage, period, no exceptions. This is black letter federal law (FLSA). There is nothing anything associated with commissions can do to change that.

However, as long as MW (and OT if applicable) rules are followed, the feds basically lose all interest in everything else. We move into the area of state law, and maybe contract law, and maybe a lot of things. Your state is not my state. Even if your state was my state, someone would need to take a real hard look at all documents (if any) to see what state rules are affected. Some states (like CA) are a lot tougher on employers regarding commissions then say FL, which generally speaking does not care if the employer cuts their employees into small pieces and uses them to bait hooks. I have no idea what VA commission rules are. Or if VA even has commission rules. Past that, there is more to it then "tough" or "lose" rules. It is perfectly legal as far as I know in all 50 states to write a legal commission policy that bases commission payments on cash actually received from customers. And it is perfectly possible to write a poorly written policy that confuses the [bleep] out of everything.

Bottom line:
- if you are not paid minimum wage (workweek basis), you can file a wage claim with federal or VA DOL.
- if you are not being paid overtime, it gets complicated because retail has an optional Retail/Service Establishment exception, that does not so much make the overtime rules go away, as change them. This is something that federal DOL can help you with, but it is (a lot) more complicated to document.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs20.pdf
- commissions over and beyond MW/OT are legally complicated, period. You will need a local attorney to review all documents to try to translate your employer's commission policy into something that can be compared to the VA commission requirements. There is not remotely a one-size-fits-all answer here. And federal DOL does not care at all what happens as long as MW/OT are handled.

Thank you for your response. I don't necesarrily work under commission, but we do earn 2% of the total price of the online sale. I don't THINK it's commission, but more of a bonus. Am I posting in the correct forum for my first issue?

You are in a good place for the wage/hour question, maybe not so much for the safety question, although that is really a moderator issue. If they think the question belongs somewhere else, they can move it or suggest that you repost. More people respond to questions during the week then on weekends, and all responders are unpaid volunteers who actually have lives doing other things when they are not answering questions. The problem with unpaid answers is that you have to wait for a volunteer who actually knows the answer to have nothing better to do then come to this website and answer questions.

Talking about bonus versus commission does not really change my answer, although if this really is not commission then the Retail/Service Establishment exception gets removed. MW/OT remain black letter federal (and state) law, while payments past MW/OT remain a "talk to a local attorney and bring all related documents" issue. Past that, I do not know that we have a regular responder who is expert in VA commission/bonus law. I mostly know federal law, but I have exactly what one state whose law I am reasonably expert in, and it is not your state.

Thanks DAW, I do appreciate your response.

The first question is no longer an issue. It was a huge misunderstanding on my part.

FYI, we are not particularly concerned with the topic placement, as long as there is some connection between the question topic and the forum topic. Now, if you had posted a family law question in the employment law forums, for example, I would probably have made note of that and moved your question to a more appropriate one. But particularly where you had more than one question, as long as there is a connection of sorts between the question and the forum topics, you're fine. All the responders read all the employment law questions anyway, so it's generally not a problem even if there could have been a "better" forum placement.