Equal pay for commissioned employees?

sfhr

We currently have an employee who is exempt and works on base plus a commission. Our manager would like to hire another one and pay them no base on straight commission (with a guaranteed minimum). I have some concerns about doing this as the positions are equal but the pay could be significantly different. Not to mention what discrimination issues might arise if the new employee is in a different class than the one currently holding the job. However, we do not want to change the terms of pay for the current employee. Can anyone advise about issues with unequal pay for like jobs that are exempt?

awilliams

This may be more of a potential discrimination issue than it is an FLSA issue. If these truly are the same job, I think that the issue you outlined regarding percieved discrimination is on target. What is the reason that you would want to change one pay structure and not the other? That's going to be what the current employee and new employee are going to want to know.

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

sfhr

Thank you for the response. The points you shared will be helpful as we continue our planning.