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I live in Illinois and I work a salary position.

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I live in Illinois and I work a salary position. I work 60 to 65 hours a week sometimes more. They don't give overtime. I had 50 hours in and had water in my basement. Because I called off one day they deducted a day's wage. How is that right when I had well over my 40 hours in. What can I do?

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  1. Anonymous

    First, did you sign a contract to the hours expectation as it may lay out the process when calling off. Second, what are your employment laws in Illinois. As I know they can break down a salary to an hourly fee, that's interesting, why didn't you take a vacation day if that is their process? I think you have questions that you need to ask.

  2. Anonymous

    No contract.

  3. Leana Foss

    I live in IL as well and I know not too long ago they made changes to who could get OT. Here's what I found:

    Illinois Salary Exemption Test

    Salaried employees may be entitled to overtime pay. Illinois requires that the employee meet all of the following criteria:

    The employee must receive compensation on a salary basis at a rate not less than $684 per week;

    The employee’s primary duty must be managing the enterprise or managing a customarily recognized department or subdivision of the enterprise.

    The employee must customarily and regularly direct the work of at least two or more other full-time employees or their equivalent.

    The employee must have the authority to hire or fire other employees, or the employee’s suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring, firing, advancement, promotion, or any other change of status of other employees must be given particular weight.

  4. Anonymous

    Contact the Dept of Labor. I have actually been very impressed with their handling of a friends case in which he was denied overtime. I had to speak with the investigator and he seemed genuinely motivated to do the right thing.

  5. Anonymous

    "Salaried" usually means exempt from overtime law. People who are entitled to overtime are usually categorized as "non-exempt" or "hourly."

  6. Anonymous

    This ones easy, stop working those many hours. Contact a good employment attorney and file a wage claim with the state against your employer.

  7. Anonymous

    If OP is classified as "salary exempt", it's not that easy. Many states in the US have a classification that allows them to not pay OT legally (my state, MI is one of these). OP could stop putting in so many hours, but there is a good chance there is no legal standing for not being paid wages.

  8. Anonymous

    Illinois is a state which has salary exempt. The OP has no legal entitlement to get paid if she is salary exempt. A good company would allow the poster to flex her time - clearly this is not a good company!

  9. Anonymous

    You can't file a wage claim if you're salaried.

  10. Anonymous

    Unfortunately, since you are a salaried employee, you are paid based on “days” you work, not by the “hours” you work. Try asking if you may use a days worth of paid time off, PTO. If you do not have PTO that is technically unpaid time off.

  11. Anonymous

    So I work in HR in another state but i would suggest talking to an employment attorney or someone with Wage/hour in your state. Any week in which you work you should be paid your salary according to FLSA guidelines.

  12. Anonymous

    If you're salaried, then comp time isn't guaranteed but some managers will give it, others won't. You'd have to have a conversation with your manager before you need to use it. If your manager won't give comp time then do everything you can to get your actual weekly time to closer to 40 hrs. If there's too much work for the current team to handle then the less you give time and a half to the job for free then you're just justifying the fact they can get all the work done without hiring more people.

  13. Anonymous

    with all due respect in the midwest this isn't always how they work. at my office we got informed we were doing mandatory overtime, it was not an option. the salaried folk also were not compensated because it was in their contract that they made significantly more than the hourly estimate below them. they also could make you work weekends and only had to give 24hrs notice. it was really difficult for people with kids, but then that's why most people chose not to have them.

  14. Elizabeth Hicks

    are you a right to work state? where I lived in indiana this would be 100% legal and they did practice this where I worked.

    my guess is it's legal and just a crappy employer.

  15. Anonymous

    I used to work a salaried job in Indiana, and it was the same -- no comp time unless you worked it out with your supervisor as a schedule adjustment.

  16. Kate Wade

    Sounds like either stop working so many hours or find a new company. While technically they may be able to do that, it sounds like a toxic culture.

  17. Anonymous

    If you are working over your agreed hours and the company isn’t aware of it or agreed to it then you have donated your time. If you are salaried, then it’s baked in and again you have donated your time. Perhaps it’s time to go to HR and your supervisor to find out what your work agreement says and if your hours over 40 equate to anything; and beyond that please consider why you giving so much your life away to a company that likely has no problem laying you off in hard times and you have lost quality of life outside of work. You will never look back on your life and say you should have worked more, but rather regret that you worked too much and lived too little. Good luck.

  18. Rosa E Hearn

    I'm not HR, but just curious, did they ask you to work overtime or are you doing this at will? It's one thing they are asking you, it's another one if you are doing it to finish on time or to not fall behind. If they are not asking you, why can't you just leave after 40 hours?

    Also, you can't just take the day off. That's not how salary works IMO. You need to work and if you need to leave early that's when salary kicks in. It should be in your employee hand book as to how many hours a day is needed to get paid if I left early. It's on mine.

  19. Anonymous

    As a salaried employee, you can work extra hours without compensation, including comp time.
    Generally, your PTO or vacation days would have to be used if you have that PTO benefit.

    So the short answer is there's nothing you can do.

  20. Julie McGovern, EdD

    Just curious. Did they offer you the option to take PTO for the day? Since you are salaried, that seems like the most logical solution. But no, you don’t get the time off for free.

  21. Anonymous

    If you're in a salaried position, I don't believe they can do that. Check with a local employment attorney or your local legal aid office.

  22. Anonymous

    If you're salaried, they can't deduct a day's pay.

  23. Anonymous

    If the specific state employment law doesn't say that, yes they can. Just like if someone starts a salaried position on Thursday and only work 2 days, they pay what they worked that week not full salary. It's shady, but yes, docking pay sadly can be a thing. Not sure why a vacation day wasn't used

  24. Elizabeth Hicks

    this depends entirely on the contract

  25. Anonymous

    There is no contract when you're salaried.

  26. Patricia Crook

    I disagree. Both of my recent salary positions were signed with a multi-page contract.

  27. Anonymous

    I think you're confusing a "contract" with an NDA/non-compete agreement.

  28. Patricia Crook

    No, my past two jobs as an LMHC salaried position were multi-page contracts.
    No NDA involved.

  29. Anonymous

    I don't know about the legality of docking a day's pay because I'm not in employment law, plus I'm not familiar with Illinois' laws. That said, some companies allow you to take comp time (use extra hours worked to cover a day), but I don't think it's required by law. Usually you need to discuss it with your manager at a minimum before taking a day off.

    There are a lot of perks to being salaried, and there are also a ton of downsides. This is one of them.

  30. Mislyn

    I don’t believe they can do that in Illinois. I would check with the Department of Labor. Trust me I’ve studied all the Illinois laws and I believe they are in the wrong.

  31. Nancey Chambers

    If they are treating you like you are hourly, then they need to pay you for all of your past overtime.

  32. Anonymous

    That is against the law in IL. If a salaried employee works any part of the week then they are supposed to be paid for that week. You can break it down by day to require use of vacation, but you cannot deduct a days wage if the vacation is out. I would go back to your manager and let them know that you should be made whole. If not, you will consider yourself an hourly employee and expect overtime pay within the law, or you can start working no more than 40 hours per week. They can’t have it both ways.

  33. Patricia Crook

    Makes no sense. Even salary have sick or personal leave. Did you exceed or use up all of your leave and got docked?

  34. Ellyn Specker Charap

    Ooooooh, that is NOT OK. You are salaried! I would definitely go back to your manager to let them know - carefully - that you are aware that this is not cool. I suggest an opener such as, "Hey, could you go over this with me? See right here, I got docked pay, but I'm salaried, so docking my pay when I already put in some 50 hrs that week doesn't seem right to me. I want to make sure the company isn't making mistakes - can you imagine if this were illegal and the company could get in trouble? Let's see what happened so we can fix it!"

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