Any lawyers that practice employment law here?

Is there anyone here who works with employment law? Our local management is making noises about shifting the start date of our work week my 2 days but not adjusting pay batch accordingly. If they do that it will take away a ton of overtime (their main goal), affect some bonuses and in the end probably cost me about $1200 a month. I have done some digging and 29CFR 778.105 makes it sound like that is illegal. I just want to make sure I have my ducks in a row before I start a scrap with out HR person who is the main driver behind this.

 

@crashman You may want to include the state where you work.

Good luck!

 

I'm not but I would be happy to give you advice.

 

An employer may choose the day of the week a workweek will begin. When an employer establishes a workweek, the workweek typically must remain fixed. However, it may be moved so long as the employer intends the change to be permanent and is not attempting to avoid paying overtime. 29 CFR 778.105; 29 CFR 778.301; 29 CFR 778.302.

So it seems if it's a permanent change, they're on solid legal footing.

 

Alaska

"and is not attempting to avoid paying overtime" is where I think they might be screwing up though as there is no reason that my work week needs to start on a Wed and it would be a deliberate attempt to avoid paying me and all of my guys overtime. Wed is the day that has the greatest impact to our OT hours.

 

No matter how bad I want to I do not think punching the HR "lady" in the mouth would help me much...

 

It may resolve the situation tho.....

 

What that refers to is if the employer wanted to change the workweek temporarily to avoid paying overtime already worked.
It sounds like your employer is making a permanent change for reasonable purposes. And they don't have to change the start of everyone's work week, either. They can change just your department's work week if they want or even just yours.

A workweek consists of seven consecutive 24-hour periods that equal 168 total hours. An employer may choose to begin a workweek on any day of the week and there may be one defined workweek for all employees or different workweeks for different groups of employees or individual employees.

Looks like you're scrod.

 

She is a hefty heifer though. If I am going to try that I would need to pack a lunch and bring my A game. I do not think she would go down easily.

A bunch of us looked at it and 3/4 interpreted it the way I did and 1/4 interpreted it the way you did. That is why I was hoping one of the resident law dogs with experience in this could clear it up for us.

 

You have no idea how much I'd love to see an angry, large woman beat you into the ground someday.

 

Its based on interpretation of the law. So now you argue your point, or at least the lawyer does before the court.
Good luck.

 

Usually, if a law can be interpreted in business' favor over an individual, the individual is not going to win.

 

Our pay structure is way fucked up. I used to be salary plus day rate but they made us hourly because of the Labor Dept. ruling on overtime. Our pay periods are 2 weeks and start on Monday. We work 13 hr days for 2 weeks straight then get 2 weeks off so starting on a Wed takes away 26 overtime hours per pay period, plus it affects other "bonuses" that we receive that were supposed to make the hourly system equal to the day rate system. It would be a royal fucking...

 

Is there an Alaskan specific set of laws that may supersede the ones you pasted from Cornell?

http://www.employmentlawhandbook.com/wage-and-hour-laws/state-wage-and-hour-laws/alaska/ Perhaps?

 

Ya, I was hoping someone had experience in this and could give their opinion though. Words sometimes mean something different in the legal world.

Everyone hates Halliburton though so that is in my favor.

 

I could not find anything specific in the AK laws that addressed that and the Alaska stuff had this " Federal law will apply in cases where it benefits employees more than state law, otherwise state law applies."so I went to the Code of Federal regulations. But I am way out of my depth in this shit.

 

You know, you really are an asshole. How about an angry not large woman. I will set up a camera and then tell the wife I spent the college fund on a Panagale...
I could take the HR water buffalo but it may not be pretty. I would definitely be fighting above my weight though. I think she is about 6' and would be shocked if the scale showed anything less than 2fiddy.

 

The question is not if they can change the work week, they can. For clarification what are they trying to do? is the now Wed-Tues but they want to pay off of Mon-Sun? Can't happen. They can make a permanent change from to Wed-Tues and pay you Wed-Tues. They will also be required to pay you the greater of the two for the cross over week, if that week contains a day(s) that falls in both the old week and the new week. But going forward if you work the same amount of hours in a 7day period you're sill getting paid.

 

Typically when a company makes a significant change like this, it's done after many many many hours of sifting through the law to make sure it can be done legally.