Hi,
I work at a high tech company in California that just reclassified a number of its employees as non-exempt. Some of these employees are now being required to work 45 hours per week (previously, 40 hours was required). Many of us would like to stay at 40 hours per week.

The employer's argument against this is that in order to pay us the same wages when we were exempt employees, we need to now work 45 hours (the extra 5 hours is paid as OT) so that the numbers work out, i.e., if we only had to work 40 hours as a non-exempt employee and we got paid the same as when we were exempt, it would result in the employer paying us (as non-exempts) at an hourly rate that is much higher (like 20% more apparantly) than what we got paid previously as an exempt employee.

Does any of this make sense? In any case, my question is: Is anyone aware of what rational/solutions other companies have used in NOT increasing the number of hours required of employees when changing them from exempt to non-exempt status?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this!

Think like an employer. Why hire new people to pick up the slack when it is cheaper to use existing employees a little bit more. New employees cost more in terms of benefits, while you all are already there. So each time 5-6 people do 5 hours overtime, that is 1-2 people they do not need to hire.

Right - I get that. I wasn't clear enough with my question... Our employer may be willing to revert us back to a 40-hour workweek, however, they're trying to figure out how to do that money-wise.

Apparantly, converting our previous exempt salary using a 40 hour workweek would result in a very high hourly rate which they say would not be in line with market rates and would cause inequities in pay for employees up the chain who are exempt.

Are there any solutions to this issue (other than raising the pay for others up the chain) or good counter-arguments?