sleepy6
08-25-2005, 01:57 PM
Illinois
I've come across a situation where a service related construction company pays its employees by the job rather than the hour. It is strictly piece work and there is no base hourly wage.
so if they are doing install work they get X amount of dollars and if they are doing repair work, they get Y amount of dollars, etc.
These employees average working around 70-90 hours per week. The amount they are paid for the job does not change for the amount of hours worked that week, the day or time of day. It's always X or Y.
There is no time clock, but hours *should* be able to be officially tracked through the paperwork the employees fill out for each job where it lists the date and time of the service call. The employees do not get to keep a copy of this sheet though.
We've been having the employees estimate their past work hours and go back through their paystubs to get an idea of how much they were getting paid by the hour.
It's looking like some of the helpers ended up making about $6-7 per hour on average. The technicians ended being paid anywhere from $10-15 per hour. So regardless whether they worked 40 hours that week or 100, it's averaging out to the same dollar amount per hour.
It's appearing that some of the lower paid employees are actually falling under the minimum wage requirements for overtime and we will be visiting the wage and hour division regarding this.
But the techicians are above what mininum wage plus overtime would be for the amount they are paid for those hours of work.
So my questions are, is it legal for this type of work to occur as long as at the end of the week, the employees make what would be at or above the standards of mininum wage? Or are there other factors involved in determining how their overtime should be handled? Does their average hourly wage during a 40 hour week have any bearing on this since it's all commission?
Thanks.
I've come across a situation where a service related construction company pays its employees by the job rather than the hour. It is strictly piece work and there is no base hourly wage.
so if they are doing install work they get X amount of dollars and if they are doing repair work, they get Y amount of dollars, etc.
These employees average working around 70-90 hours per week. The amount they are paid for the job does not change for the amount of hours worked that week, the day or time of day. It's always X or Y.
There is no time clock, but hours *should* be able to be officially tracked through the paperwork the employees fill out for each job where it lists the date and time of the service call. The employees do not get to keep a copy of this sheet though.
We've been having the employees estimate their past work hours and go back through their paystubs to get an idea of how much they were getting paid by the hour.
It's looking like some of the helpers ended up making about $6-7 per hour on average. The technicians ended being paid anywhere from $10-15 per hour. So regardless whether they worked 40 hours that week or 100, it's averaging out to the same dollar amount per hour.
It's appearing that some of the lower paid employees are actually falling under the minimum wage requirements for overtime and we will be visiting the wage and hour division regarding this.
But the techicians are above what mininum wage plus overtime would be for the amount they are paid for those hours of work.
So my questions are, is it legal for this type of work to occur as long as at the end of the week, the employees make what would be at or above the standards of mininum wage? Or are there other factors involved in determining how their overtime should be handled? Does their average hourly wage during a 40 hour week have any bearing on this since it's all commission?
Thanks.
