service work and pay

[JJWalecka]

Hypothetical situation.
Employee already has 40 hours.
Eight hour work day on saturday. The service electrician visits four customers. Five hours of actual installation, shop time and time at supply house. Three hours of driving to and from customers.
Would it be possible to pay the traveling hours at a "travel" hourly rate? The employee would have five hours at time and a half and three hours travel time at straight time

This is not the case at my employer but wondered if it was legal.

 

[Hv&Lv]

Hypothetical situation.
Employee already has 40 hours.
Eight hour work day on saturday. The service electrician visits four customers. Five hours of actual installation, shop time and time at supply house. Three hours of driving to and from customers.
Would it be possible to pay the traveling hours at a "travel" hourly rate? The employee would have five hours at time and a half and three hours travel time at straight time

This is not the case at my employer but wondered if it was legal.

Check your State laws, but for FLSA, "travel time which is "all in a day's work" is work time." and must be paid overtime.

 

[iwire]

Would it be possible to pay the traveling hours at a "travel" hourly rate? The employee would have five hours at time and a half and three hours travel time at straight time

This is not the case at my employer but wondered if it was legal.

That is legal where I am. I think legally you could actually pay minimum wage for travel,but I can't imagine that going over well.

 

[Hv&Lv]

That is legal where I am. I think legally you could actually pay minimum wage for travel,but I can't imagine that going over well.

I fail to see how you can not pay overtime for driving to the next appointment if the employee is paid by the hour.

In looking at Gold's post I could see how the wage structure could work to lower the pay of someone while traveling. The employer would still have to pay overtime based on that rate.

It would still be a suckey thing to do...

 

[Gold]

You would have to pay overtime but it would be 1 1/2 time the travel rate. If the travel rate was $8/hr then you would have to pay $12/hr.

You can pay as many different rates for different task as you like.

$20hr standard
$8 travel
$30hr on personally developed work.


You gotta be carefull tho with overtime, for instance here you can't just pay 1 1/2 times there 41st hour you have to pay 1 1/2 times the average hourly rate/40

Assuming they don't meet the white collar exemptions by amount earned or contract.

The short answer I guess is yes you can.

 

[PetrosA]

If I had a boss that tried to nickel and dime me like that with different rates for travel and work on an overtime Saturday, I don't think I'd be doing much overtime for him. My family would be much more appreciative of me, I'm sure.

 

[masterinbama]

You should be billing the Saturday customer time and a half, and paying your electrician for working that day.

 

[Gold]

My experience with these type of pay structures are designed to put more opportunity to earn in the hands of the employee and the end result has always been better pay. It lowers the employers exposure to loss and allows them to pay a premium for results. Usually its used in split pay rate systems where billable time is paid at a significantly higher rate.

 

[JJWalecka]

That is legal where I am. I think legally you could actually pay minimum wage for travel,but I can't imagine that going over well.

Do you know the legal document, in massachusetts, that states that?

 

[gadfly56]

That is legal where I am. I think legally you could actually pay minimum wage for travel,but I can't imagine that going over well.

Here is Mass. law on overtime:

Section 1A. Except as otherwise provided in this section, no employer in the commonwealth shall employ any of his employees in an occupation, as defined in section two, for a work week longer than forty hours, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of forty hours at a rate not less than one and one half times the regular rate at which he is employed. Sums paid as commissions, drawing accounts, bonuses, or other incentive pay based on sales or production, shall be excluded in computing the regular rate and the overtime rate of compensation under the provisions of this section. In any work week in which an employee of a retail business is employed on a Sunday or certain holidays at a rate of one and one-half times the regular rate of compensation at which he is employed as provided in chapter 136, the hours so worked on Sunday or certain holidays shall be excluded from the calculation of overtime pay as required by this section, unless a collectively bargained labor agreement provides otherwise. Except as otherwise provided in the second sentence, nothing in this section shall be construed to otherwise limit an employee?s right to receive one and one-half times the regular rate of compensation for an employee on Sundays or certain holidays or to limit the voluntary nature of work on Sundays or certain holidays, as provided for in said chapter 136.

There is a list of exceptions, but I don't see "electrician" as one of them. But maybe there's been a labor board ruling you could share?

 

[petersonra]

I worked for a company one time that paid everyone time and a half for certain less desirable jobs.

They had a base rate and everything over 40 hours was 1.5X as were all hours spent on certain jobs.

One guy tried to claim that since he was only working the less desirable jobs he should get paid time and a half on top of his time and a half for hours past 40 in a week, but it never went anywhere.

 

[btharmy]

Changing a workers pay rate based on what he is doing at the moment is the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Any time I was hired by a contractor, my pay was agreed upon. It was NEVER contingent on what I was doing. If I left my house on a Saturday to go to work, I expected to make my hourly rate at time and a half until I headed home at the end of the work day. I have no employees, but when I do, you can bet an hour worked is an hour paid. It is just that simple.

 

[Gold]

It is just that simple.

Thats great for you, many people feel that way and they need the simplified structure or they feel they are being cheated. Others want an opportunity to earn more for more challenging task or a reward for better production these people are better suited for split rate.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

Thats great for you, many people feel that way and they need the simplified structure or they feel they are being cheated. Others want an opportunity to earn more for more challenging task or a reward for better production these people are better suited for split rate.

In the end, the opportunity is never really there. It sounds great on paper, but in practice it never works.

This is nothing new, if it actually worked it would be the model for the entire industry. What really happens is good employees make less money due to super high goals, the quality of work drops significantly since doing it as fast as possible becomes profitable to the employee, and the general logistics end up costing even more in the long run.

 

[hillbilly1]

Changing a workers pay rate based on what he is doing at the moment is the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Any time I was hired by a contractor, my pay was agreed upon. It was NEVER contingent on what I was doing. If I left my house on a Saturday to go to work, I expected to make my hourly rate at time and a half until I headed home at the end of the work day. I have no employees, but when I do, you can bet an hour worked is an hour paid. It is just that simple.

I don't know, but I've heard that's what the Union does..........

 

[John120/240]

I have no experience with electrical unions, but a second hand source tells me that painters &

sandblasters have a floating scale. Your base rate plus a variable scale based on the task being

performed.

 

[hbiss]

Regardless of what your pay rate is per hour, if you work more than 40 hours per week you must be paid overtime for those hours over 40 which is whatever the hourly rate is for those hours over 40 times 1.5.

So yeah, that guy who was working at that undesirable task that normally paid 1.5 times the normal rate should have been paid 1.5 times that if he was doing it over his 40 hour limit.

-Hal

 

[twoelk]

I have no experience with electrical unions, but a second hand source tells me that painters &

sandblasters have a floating scale. Your base rate plus a variable scale based on the task being

performed.

Our standard rate is journeyman scale. You get paid more if your a welder, cable slicer, foreman, general foreman, hazard pay, high time, and probably a few others

 

[Gold]

In the end, the opportunity is never really there. It sounds great on paper, but in practice it never works.

This is nothing new, if it actually worked it would be the model for the entire industry. What really happens is good employees make less money due to super high goals, the quality of work drops significantly since doing it as fast as possible becomes profitable to the employee, and the general logistics end up costing even more in the long run.

This may be your experience but it isn't always the case. I have had 2 jobs like this both paid extremely well. I have also paid 2 employees this way who were very happy.

Regardless of what your pay rate is per hour, if you work more than 40 hours per week you must be paid overtime for those hours over 40 which is whatever the hourly rate is for those hours over 40 times 1.5.

So yeah, that guy who was working at that undesirable task that normally paid 1.5 times the normal rate should have been paid 1.5 times that if he was doing it over his 40 hour limit.

-Hal

This isn't entirely true either. Over 40 requires time and half, but you can pay them time and a half over 8 or any other reason such as working a dirty job and time and a half over 40 isn't always required.

 

[satcom]

This may be your experience but it isn't always the case. I have had 2 jobs like this both paid extremely well. I have also paid 2 employees this way who were very happy.

This isn't entirely true either. Over 40 requires time and half, but you can pay them time and a half over 8 or any other reason such as working a dirty job and time and a half over 40 isn't always required.

I Know a number of guys that did service work, and were not hourly wage workers, they were on an annual salary, and many times they worked long days, but rather then agree to a small time and a half pay, they had bonuses, and company profit sharing plans, most of these guys left the service companies, with a real pack on their backs, most retired with, high six figure numbers, from the profit sharing, the bonus money they received every quarter, more then made up for the small time and a half pay they would of received.