Work Commission Issue?

Question

Hello Everyone,

Here’s the situation. The company I work for pay structure works like this. I get paid hourly or commission. Basically if make more money on commission then hourly. They’ll pay me commission instead of hourly. I work 80 hours every two weeks. I make $8.00 hour. So to keep commission I have to make more then $680.00 in profit to take home. If I make $1600.00, then I take home $1600.00 instead of my hourly. Here’s the problem, my last paycheck they implemented new pay, which I didn’t agree to. If I miss 2 hour at work, they will deduct this from my commission. So I do $1600.00, that means I’m basically running at $20.00 per hour. What they did is deduct $20.00 per hour when I’m not here. I don’t think this is legal. I mean I’m getting paid one or the other. How can you deduct hourly, when I’m getting straight commission and no hourly. I mean I understand if I get hourly + commission, but not if I get one or the other. I like my job, but this is wrong.

Answer 1

I'm not a professional, so this is just my "amateur" take.

I'm assuming you're in the U.S.  The only federal law that might apply is the Fair Labor Standards Act.  But the FLSA is intended primarily to regulate minimum wage and overtime pay.  Furthermore, there are certain exceptions for workers paid by commission.  Regardless, I'm pretty sure it does not help you in your special situation.  If you want, you can poke around the Dept. of Labor's 's website at http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/ to try to find something helpful.  They have a lot of good information on their site.

Your State's Dept' of Labor may have more specific law's that help you out, beyond what FLSA does.  I would find their website and see if there is a description of state worker compensation laws.

Aside from federal/state laws, you might have other options, such as ordinary "contract" law.  Are you working under a contract?  Are you a government worker?  Are you a union member?  Yes to any of those would all help, but I'm assuming they probably don't apply.

Otherwise, you and your employer probably have a pure at-will arrangement, and he is completely free to change the terms of pay as he sees fit whenever he wants.

Hope this helped.