Commissioned Sales on Disability California California

[Binky12]

Last year I came down with cancer. I work in a commissioned environment, sales VS draw. The problem is while I was out on disability, I was getting returns taken out of my 'sick' pay even though I was not on the clock. My coworkers were also advised not to ring anything under me even for even exchanges. However, I always got hit with returns while I was out on disability. I looked in the employee handbook but there's nothing there that states that I should get hit for returns while out on disability.

On a side note, we're allowed to ring or split sales with another salesperson in order to save the sale BUT my crew was instructed that nothing was to be rung up under me while on disability. Thank you

[Betty3]

Do you have a specific question? Are you asking if this is legal?

Thanks.

[Binky12]

Commissioned Sales on Disability

Yes I wanted to know if this is legal. I'm thinking of bringing legal action against my employer since now I owe them money because of all the returns I got while out on disability. Thanks

[DAW]

CA rules on commissions are neither simple or obvious. You need to download the following, and read chapter 34 several times.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Manual-Instructions.htm

Past that, I would want to be very careful that I was working with actual rules. Chapter 34 of the CA-DLSE is actual rules. Past that point, if you are Inside Sales (as in selling from the employer's facility) then you MUST be paid at least minimum wage and it is not possible for the employer to not pay MW. No matter what returns/draw/commissions/whatever says.

Next point. Commissions and disability pay are legally unrelated to each other. Rules on "hours worked" and pay based on "hours worked" are legally unrelated to disability pay. I am familiar with both the commission rules and the "hours worked" rules, but there generally are no sick pay rules per se. I am not saying that there is not some answer that brings all this together but I do not know what it is.

Start with the obvious stuff. Make sure that you are being paid MW, period, no exception. There is no legal excuse not do to this, unless you are Outside Sales, and your statements in your question do not sound like Outside Sales.

Next obvious place are the Chapter 34 commission rules. Make sure that those are being followed. Again we have hard rules here, so you can see if any actual rules are being violated.

Which leaves us with your sick pay. The manual has no chapter on sick pay, because there are no CA specific rules (or federal specific rules) on sick pay. If you key word search "sick" in the CA-DLSE manual, you will get a lot of hits, but those tend to be very specific to some other subject. No one can tell for sure without fully reading all company documents related to the sick pay plan, but CA (and the feds) are not externally imposing rules on the employer here. Which makes it very hard to give a meaningful answer on this point.

[Binky12]

Commissioned Sales on Disability

Thank you, yes I'm inside sales. I work at a high end store in BH. I was paid sick pay, which is way more than MW, however I was dinged with all the returns I got while I was out sick. My sick pay was not enough to cover my draw that I went in the rears. Now I owe the company money even though I was not physically there. Thanks for the link to the brochure. I've read it over and over and I still do not see the answer to my question. Like you said, there doesn't seem to be rules in sick pay. Thx