Q: can an employer change & reduce salary to hourly & say it was based on 45 hours per week if the pay stub clearly say 40?
I’ve worked for the same company for 13 years as a salaried employee. I have to sign a contract as part of a title and career path upgrade that reduces my pay and updates a NCD. I’m still doing the same job in the same spot. When I asked they said my salary was based on a 45 hour work week. The hours on my pay statement calculate out to 2080 per year. I’m paid 2 times a month.
A:
As long as the employer gives at least a pay period advance notice to employee of a reduction in pay, they are not violating any laws in MD. However, your question raises the issue of whether you were appropriately classified as exempt in the first place- if your job duties have truly remained the same, and you are now being called non-exempt.
A salary can be based on a 45 hour (or longer) workweek. But if you were in fact working more than 40 hours a week, and your job duties (and other factors) did not actually make you fit within an exemption to the overtime laws, it does not matter that they paid a salary. You're either exempt or non-exempt, and if you're non-exempt, you were entitled to be paid overtime. But that question is very fact-intensive.
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