Sick time for exempt employees

[ddannc]

I am an exempt salaried sales rep for a large pharma company. I have been employed for the same company for many years and have been told there are not 'written' guidelines for exempt employees on sick days taken. We are required to work many evenings, weekends, conventions and so forth. So most weeks of the year we work well over 55-60 hours per week.

Recently we were told that if a child is ill or if your spouse is having surgery and you require a day off, you must take either a vacation day or an unpaid day off. I don't know about you, but I do not consider cleaning up after a child with the flu a vacation day.

How would they calculate an unpaid sick day? Then if they did calculate an unpaid sick day, would they be required to pay you that same amount per day if you worked a convention on a Saturday or Sunday? It just seems unfair they can 'dock' your pay but refuse to pay overtime.

What is the law in regards to this situation?

[Sockeye]

It is legal in almost all states. It sounds as if there is no formal sick leave policy, just vacation. Most of the time this is called PTO short for Paid Time Off, a generic term for paid absence.

If you miss a full day they can require you to use a PTO day or have it unpaid, our company calculates this by dividing the yearly salary by 2080 to get the hourly rate, then multiplying by 8 hours. I've also seen it done monthly rate divided by 20.5 (avarage days worked in a month).

[Pattymd]

And, if you receive commissions only (no base pay), most employers I've worked for and consulted with would base the daily rate on your average commissions over the last, say, 6 months or a year.

And, while I agree that cleaning up after a sick child is not what you consider "vacation", if that's all your employer offers, then that's what you take.