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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    4

    Exclamation Can You Be Required to Repay a Relocation Package if You Quit Due to Excessive Hours

    My question involves employment and labor law for the state of:

    Hi. My husband works with a very large company that is Nationwide (the #1 anti-union company in the Nation). He is a manager and we we were just transferred to a Right to work state.

    He has been working with the company for almost 4 years but he was working in one of their distribution centers before making the switch to retail in a different state. Part of this transfer was a Relocation Package. They paid for a moving company, they shipped our 2nd vehicle, they paid for our gas, food and hotel on the drive up and they gave us 3K spending.

    We have recently discovered how horrible this job is. They are working my husband 65+ hours a week. They are working him 10 days without a day off and recently they started taking his lunch away, they lessened it from an hour to 15 minutes. We were told to expect this 6 months out of the year because of Inventory, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas.

    We also have 2 Special Needs children. My husband is never home and I'm handling their needs on my own with out help which is quite difficult. It wouldn't be so difficult if he worked his proper schedule. He has been working so much that we are a week into school starting and I still haven't been able to register them for school because there is no one here.

    How is this legal? We've expressed our concern to the Store Manager but from what we can tell is that the company doesn't care. We want to leave the company and find a better job as my husband is about to graduate from College with his degree but the thing that holds us here is the Relocation Repayment agreement. We have to stay with the company for TWO YEARS. He is salary and they do not pay over time for all of these hours he's working. I'm guessing you know the company I am referring to.

    Is there anything we can do? We don't want to leave "just because", our family has actual needs that can't be met because they are working my husband like a slave (he only makes 44K a year salary). Can we do anything? Will they come after us? We aren't dishonest people but this is crazy.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    24,521

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    There is a reason we ask for your state. 90% of what you've posted is going be legal no matter what state you're in. There are one or two things that might be illegal depending on your state.

    (And the answer to, how is this legal is; because there isn't a law that makes it illegal.)

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    4

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    Idaho

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    24,521

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    Sorry, then. The only things in your post that might possibly have been illegal would be the lack of breaks, and 10 days in a row. Idaho does not require employees get any breaks and in Idaho (as with most but not quite all other states) he could be required to work 365 days a year and as long as he got paid properly, that's all that matters. Everything else is legal, and 65 hours a week isn't even considered all that overwhelming. Even in the very few states that place a limit on the number of hours an employee can work, 65 hours is well within legal.

    BTW, this has nothing to do with right to work, which means you cannot be required to join a union to get work.

    About the only suggestion I can make is that you have a lawyer in the appropriate state review the relocation agreement and see whether it is binding, but there really isn't any reason to think that it wouldn't be.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    576

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    The fact the company is anti-union is not relevant to your husband's situation, if he is a manager and not a union member.

    First thing is to review the terms of the relocation package he presumably signed.

    Next is to DOCUMENT the hours he is actually working.

    Then at some point your husband needs to consider pushing back. No one can MAKE him work 65 hours a week, although 50+ hours a week for exempt employees is not outside the norm (and is expected) in many large companies, especially for low to mid level management. So somewhere over 50 hours he may need to start drawing a line. Which may start at "hey, gotta take care of kids school or doctor or whatever at this time so need to come in a little late (or leave at a little early)", and document it via email and stand to it. Or "I can't be in earlier than this every day or leave later than that because of my responsibility to my children with "special needs"", with emphasis on that.

    In most large companies working a huge amount of hours boils down to a choice, which though may be career limiting, is for some people sanity and marriage saving. So while his reviews may suggest he is not being a team player, if he intends to move on to other things, that may not matter so much. And if they choose to let him go for not being able to work 60+ hours a week, it is unlikely they will push for reimbursement of the relocation package. But with that much vested in him, letting him go for cutting back on an overload of hours will not likely get him fired if the hours he does work is exemplary.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Lake Chapala
    Posts
    3,043

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    Quote Quoting tex11
    View Post
    The fact the company is anti-union is not relevant to your husband's situation, if he is a manager and not a union member.

    First thing is to review the terms of the relocation package he presumably signed.

    Next is to DOCUMENT the hours he is actually working.

    Then at some point your husband needs to consider pushing back. No one can MAKE him work 65 hours a week, although 50+ hours a week for exempt employees is not outside the norm (and is expected) in many large companies, especially for low to mid level management. So somewhere over 50 hours he may need to start drawing a line. Which may start at "hey, gotta take care of kids school or doctor or whatever at this time so need to come in a little late (or leave at a little early)", and document it via email and stand to it. Or "I can't be in earlier than this every day or leave later than that because of my responsibility to my children with "special needs"", with emphasis on that.

    In most large companies working a huge amount of hours boils down to a choice, which though may be career limiting, is for some people sanity and marriage saving. So while his reviews may suggest he is not being a team player, if he intends to move on to other things, that may not matter so much. And if they choose to let him go for not being able to work 60+ hours a week, it is unlikely they will push for reimbursement of the relocation package. But with that much vested in him, letting him go for cutting back on an overload of hours will not likely get him fired if the hours he does work is exemplary.
    This is not legal advice. Of course the company can make him work 65 hours a week, by virtue of the fact that the company can legally fire him for working less than 65 hours per week. If OP's husband follows the advice you've given here, OP's husband will soon find himself out of a job. Is that what you're trying to do, get him fired?

    And as far as the relocation package is concerned, how do you know they won't demand the money back when they fire him? Do you have a crystal ball?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    576

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    Quote Quoting eerelations
    View Post
    This is not legal advice. Of course the company can make him work 65 hours a week, by virtue of the fact that the company can legally fire him for working less than 65 hours per week. If OP's husband follows the advice you've given here, OP's husband will soon find himself out of a job. Is that what you're trying to do, get him fired?

    And as far as the relocation package is concerned, how do you know they won't demand the money back when they fire him? Do you have a crystal ball?
    Having worked in, and currently employed by, Fortune 50 corporations over many many years as a high salary exempt, I probably have a far better perspective on the practical and legal realities within the corporate environment, including relocation packages, than you do. And no crystal ball required...

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    OH10
    Posts
    17,019

    Default Re: Repay Relocation Package After Being Worked 65+ Hours a Week

    I might add I jumped out of retail management a long time ago also. Our company was bought out and the new owner decided curtailing bonuses was a great way to pay back their investment. I had been declining a promotion due to being disabled and when the announcement came I was suddenly going to take a $20k pay cut, it was give me the promotion I am not capable of handling without assistance or I'm gone. I left and started a new career.

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