I have a question as a salary employee..

My company recently cut all the salary employees pay 10% and forced us to take a mandantory day off every other week without pay.

I was told along with my co-worker that we will need to make up the mandantory day off either on Saturday or Sunday (without pay).

Also I wanted to ask a question about pay rate.

Iv'e been working for the same company for 16 years.
My co-worker (we do the same job) has been working for the company 14 years.

He makes $20K more then I do and I am certified to do my job. He is not.

here is the background.. I was contracted out by my company for 14 years and was on the customers site all the time.

When the contract ran out I returned to my company and givin a position to work with the other employee in question.
We do the same job the only diffrence was he's been local to the comapny for 14 years and I was out on a contract site for 14 years.

*I have been employed by the company longer (almost 1 1/2 years).
*I am certified to do my job. He is not.
*We do the same exact job.
*We are both Salary Employees

possible pay discrimination?

Thanks
pagemaster

First of all, "salaried" is just a payment method that means next to nothing by itself. Exempt Salaried employees are covered by the 29 CFR 541.602 rules. Non-Exempt Salaried employees are covered mostly by the 29 CFR 778.113, but once in while by the 29 CFR 778.114 rules (FWW method), and once in a very great while by the Belo Plan rules (do not know the regs of the top of my head). So, when you say "salaried", do you mean that you are paid Exempt Salaried (no paid overtime) or Non-Exempt Salaried (paid overtime)?

Past that, absent a paid contract to the contrary, changing pay on a go forward basis is not inherently illegal. Non-Exempt employees must be paid at least minimum wage, even if they are paid a salary. Exempt is more complicated, since there are many flavors of Exempt, but generally speaking Exempt Salaried employees must be paid at least $455/week.

For Exempt Salaried employees only, there is a salaried basis requirement that could cause problems if the employer keeps fiddling with the salary amount. The same thing is sort of true for the obscure Non-Exempt Salaried methods of FWW and BP, but not true for the vast majority of people paid under the "normal" 778.113 method.

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Regarding the pay discrimination issue, maybe illegal, maybe not illegal. The government does not dictate pay rates. If an actual law is being broken there is a problem. Lets say that you are a particular race, gender, or something else covered by the Title VII law, and the other person is a different race, gender, or something else. If the employer is making decisions based on something the law actually cares about, then we have illegal discrimination. If the employer is making decisions based on something that the law does not care about, then we may have discrimination but we do not have illegal discrimination.

Discrimination is not always illegal. For example, let's say that you are a Browns fan and the other person is a Bengals fan. It is perfectly legal to discriminate based on a person sport's team affliciation. What is the actual law you think is being violated?