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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Melbourne , FL
    Posts
    2

    Default Training Pay is Less Than Minimum Wage

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

    I was employed by a large cable company in Orlando, Florida in May of 2015. The job training was mandatory and setup very late (9) months after the initial hire.

    The were required to monitor sales cellular phone with limited access for breaks. We were instructed to try and make sales during these breaks to try and gain more than $5.76 per hour to create a paycheck. The hostile environment and stress of trying to get paid more then $5.76 an hour was immense.

    Previous months multiple request for fair training pay was denied.

    The company is worth more than 10 Billion dollars and can afford to pay at least state minimum wage of $8.05 and yet refused to do so.

    2 weeks was the training period so damages were not great, but does this employee underpayment viewed as abuse and appears it could be countered with a lawsuit. Maybe a group lawsuit since many others have been affected as well.

    Does this situation have enough clout to talk with a law firm about a case?

    Thanks for your advice.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    1,179

    Default Re: Training Pay is Less Than Minimum Wage

    Did you personally have any paycheck where you were paid less than minimum wage after adding in the sales commissions? It is not uncommon to have such a pay structure of a lower hourly rate than minimum and have commissions make up the rest of (or more than) minimum wage. It can be a common compensation technique for those in sales positions and if you don't make enough sales/commissions to make up the difference, generally you will not keep your job.

    You would only have a case if you had a payweek in which you could take your total pay and divide by the total # of hours worked and have that result be less than minimum wage/OT.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Melbourne , FL
    Posts
    2

    Default Re: Training Pay is Less Than Minimum Wage

    Quote Quoting hr for me
    View Post
    Did you personally have any paycheck where you were paid less than minimum wage after adding in the sales commissions? It is not uncommon to have such a pay structure of a lower hourly rate than minimum and have commissions make up the rest of (or more than) minimum wage. It can be a common compensation technique for those in sales positions and if you don't make enough sales/commissions to make up the difference, generally you will not keep your job.

    You would only have a case if you had a payweek in which you could take your total pay and divide by the total # of hours worked and have that result be less than minimum wage/OT.
    Due to the nature of how our previous sales can be scheduled ahead, some of them will fall in and count during this period. So it is possible that a paycheck will rise just above the minimum wage for the period.

    The main point is We are in training for 8 hours a day for $5.76 an hour and forced to call customers after hours off the clock to gain additional money for paycheck


    This is a hostile environment with most employees stressed out and working beyond training hours of $5.76 to get paid.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Lake Chapala
    Posts
    3,043

    Default Re: Training Pay is Less Than Minimum Wage

    The main legal point is that if your training pay + commission pay added together totals at least minimum wage for all the hours you work, then your employer is not breaking any wage and hour laws.

    And no this situation does not fall into the legal definition of a hostile working environment (HWE). Legally, an HWE is an environment where one or more employees are experiencing ongoing illegal discrimination and/or harassment based on protected characteristics such as race, disability, age, religion and/or gender. Nothing in any of your posts indicates that you or your coworkers are experiencing discrimination and/or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Lake Chapala
    Posts
    3,043

    Default Re: Training Pay is Less Than Minimum Wage

    Quote Quoting employmentlaw
    View Post
    I agree with eerelations, there is no hostile working environment, A hostile work environment is a form of harassment. It is demonstrated by such severe and pervasive conduct that permeates the work environment and interferes with an employee's ability to perform his or her job. So your employers already tell you that you have to call customers for earning more paycheck. In some company you have to pay for training so you can't fire any case against your employers.
    You missed the most important aspect of what constitutes an HWE. In order to have an HWE, the harassment must be based specifically and directly on a protected characteristic such as race, gender, religion, age (and only if the employee is over 40) and/or disability. If it's based on anything else (for example, because the employee is young, or because the supervisor simply doesn't like the employee), then it's not an HWE as defined by law.

    Quote Quoting employmentlaw
    View Post
    In some company you have to pay for training so you can't fire any case against your employers.
    And what the heck does this mean?

    Ooops, just found out OP is a spammer.

    OP I really hope the law firm you represent isn't aware that you know next to nothing about employment law, because you are seriously undermining their reputation by posting such nonsense on the firm's behalf. (With bad grammar too - a bonus!)

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