Salary Exempt Employee - Taking Unpaid Days?

[JohnFerguson]

Is anyone familiar with this scenario or have experience dealing with the following:

 

Employed as a salary exempt employee.

Office closed due to weather.

Employer asking employee to take PTO or take the day unpaid.

 

Thoughts on this or should you be paid your normal salary for the day?

 

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

You should be treated as the other employees, IMO, however that may be.  It should be spelled out beforehand however.  When I was with a local government agency, and our offices were closed, we were paid without having to use PTO.  In a private practice setting, we were always expected to be there, regardless.

[ventana]

humm good questions

 

although none of this matters as you and your job have to figure this out....

 

 

As an exempt employee you are paid a salary every week and you are not paid for time worked over or under your contract. If the office is closed, you should NOT be docked a day fo PTO/CME/Vacation or any other time.

 

Reall it is a pretty lowly thing for the office manager/owner to do in the fact that the staff was there and ready to work - if however your called in saying you could not make it in due to the weather - well yeah then you should have to use PTO because it was you who said you could not come into work

 

 

He/She who says "don't come in" or "I am not coming in" gets to pay for it...

[Guest JMPA]

red flag, you are salary exempt, it is a lowlife thing to ask you to use a PTO or go unpaid. i would audit all my pay and hours and reconsider the job. evidently they feel that you are less important than a single day of pay

[Guest jb555]

I've had a similar questions regarding days around holidays. Our office is not automatically closed the day after Thanksgiving, Xmax Eve, NYE, etc, but so many people request off that it gets closed anyways. We get straight PTO with 9 of those days for holidays (that don't include the aforementioned days.) If I don't actually ask off and am totally willing to work, but they end up closing the office, should they be taking PTO for those days? I've always felt this was unfair but everyone else in my office just shrugs it off as "the way it is." 

[burnpac]

Is anyone familiar with this scenario or have experience dealing with the following:

 

Employed as a salary exempt employee.

Office closed due to weather.

Employer asking employee to take PTO or take the day unpaid.

 

Thoughts on this or should you be paid your normal salary for the day?

Salaried, exempt employee means, that you are paid so much per time period (biweekly, monthly, etc.) to do a job. There is no need for time clock punching as an exempt employee, by definition, is paid to do a job and not by the hours. The employer can't have it both ways. They are trying to treat you as an hourly employee, but have the benefits of considering you "exempt" (e.g., no OT, breaks, etc.) It doesn't work this way, and in my experience, PAs don't meet the wage and hour criteria to be considered "exempt" in most work situations. However, the risk of this situation (liability for OT, missed breaks, etc.) is all on the employer. It your employer tells you not to come in, they can't force you to use PTO, but they still have to pay you your salary. In my experience, most small employers without HR staff don't know very much about wage and hour rules, and make up their local rules as they go (expecting you not to know very much either!). Asking you as an exempt employee to use PTO, or take an unpaid day, when the employer called you off, is likely a wage and hour violation.