Salaried deduction from pay for being sick

cebudragonlady

Situation:
1. Salaried employee ( exempt ) was sick on Monday
2. Company does NOT have sick pay policy for anyone at all
3. This employee not eligible for vacation yet - been here 10 months
4. This employee worked Tues, Weds and is here today on Thursday
5. Factory owner wants to dock employee one day's pay
6. Factory is in California

Can we dock the pay for one day's pay ?

Rockie

Cannot dock a salaried employee's pay if they work any portion of a work week.

bsa

Sometimes our "owner" wants to flex his "owner" muscles by making an example of someone. When the company was very small and very young, he was able to do as he pleased without much risk. --- I have to remind him that NOW his risk is much bigger and will affect many more families, dependent on his good business practices ... including his own! Then I tell him what his real options are.

In your case, in CA .... you know you can't do it, he knows it can't be done, but he had to ask the question anyway. Give him a lesson in his company's discipline procedures and when & how to use them.

Gillian

I'm in California and the answer is a resounding NO. If the employee works any part of a week the employee is entitled to the weeks pay.

Paula_AZ

Is paying the full week if the exempt employee worked any part of it a state-specific law or a federal law? I'm in Arizona, and I was under the impression that we could dock a full day's pay, but not partial days. Now the issue has come up at my company, and after reading the above posts, I'm not sure I had the right information all along.

Paula_AZ

It looks like I may have found the answer to my own question, which I would like to share with all.
[p]The employee must be paid a full week's salary for each week in which work is performed, regardless of the hours actually worked. The Department of Labor regulations allow employers to dock an exempt employee's pay only in LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES. These include:
[p]1. Absences of a day or more for personal reasons, other than sickness or an accident
[p]2. Absences of a day or more for sickness or disability, if the employer has a plan, policy, or practice of compensating employees for wage loss due to sickness and disability, or if the employee is receiving other wage loss benefits (e.g., workers' compensation, disability insurance payments).
[p]3. Leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act
[p]4. Disciplinary pay reductions to penalize the employee for violating safety rules of major significance. (As a general rule, disciplinary pay reductions for anything other than major safety rule violations will destroy an employee's exempt status, thus requiring the employee to be eligible for overtime pay.