massage and bodywork professionals
a community of practitioners
Employee Question -
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on
-
If you are not paid hourly and have no guaranteed minimum you are not an employee but a IC who can make their own decision. At leastt that is how it is in California. If you are an employee you can be required to stay on premises.
-
Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on
-
They have to pay you minimum wage if they want you to stay....There are labor laws.. This is the United States... Im employed at a day spa.. I have hours that Im suppose to be available for massage work .Im responsible for those hours...But if I have no appointments.. I can be on call in a coffee shop or on the couch at home. If they want me to stay on premises.. They have to pay me minimum wage. In those situation when Im not busy.. I am at home or a coffee shop.. There is a really good coffee shop nearby too.
-
Permalink Reply by Barbara Helynn Heard on
-
I notice that Amber asked what was "normal" in spas. Then she described a situation which sounds like it may be illegal.
What is normal may be different from what is legal. I'm interested in both: (1) what is normal and (2) what is legal. I'm interested to know whether they the same or different.
-
-
If they want her to sit there all day, or fold towels or something.. They have to pay her.. They cant force her to do anything they aren't paying her for. They are only paying her on commission. Im only talking what I think I know...For a real answer she needs to contact the Department of Labor in her state.
Barbara Helynn Heard said:I notice that Amber asked what was "normal" in spas. Then she described a situation which sounds like it may be illegal.
What is normal may be different from what is legal. I'm interested in both: (1) what is normal and (2) what is legal. I'm interested to know whether they the same or different.
-
Permalink Reply by Kimberly Campbell on
-
In New Jersey you are considered an at will employee. That means that you do what you are told (unless on a 1099) or you can work for someone else. These kinds of questions are unfortunately varied by the state that you live in and therefore need to be addressed to the Department of Labor in your state as others have mentioned. But I have seen owners ask employees to do things they are not being paid for. That does seem to be common. Also, in some cases if you do not live within a certain radius of your employer than they want to be sure that you are close by for the occasional walk-in. From an owner stand point, that is something I can understand, but of course that would be something I would make clear before making a job offer. But not all owners are the same and legally in some states, they don't have to tell you ahead of time.
-
Permalink Reply by Relax & Rejuvenate on
-
Wow...a lot of bad information in the replies.
1) if you are IN FACT and employee -- and not just a contractor mistakenly called an employee by you or the spa -- then this is perfectly legal and quite normal under the following conditions
- Your total earnings for the pay period, including tips, exceed the # of hours at work * the minimum wage.
The fact that you might be 100% on commission is IMMATERIAL, so long as your tips and commissioins exceed the minimum wage. You don't have to be explicitly paid for a function -- folding towels, twiddling thumbs, taking our the trash, doing inventory. If you are an EMPLOYEE, then your employer can have you do anything that is not illegal during your working hours. If you don't like what they are asking you to do, you are free to quit, but it is not wrong or illegal or against any wage/hour regulations so long as the minimum wage provisions for your state are not being violated.
Car salespeople are 100% on commission. They still have to be at the dealership and when there are no clients, they are studying manuals, sending out postcards, making follow up calls or even blowing up balloons for the President's Day sale.
-
Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on
-
I live on the MS Gulf Coast. Casino spas here pay using various plans. True ICs are scheduled in when they have appointments; they can be "on call" and required to show up on short notice to take a client. But when they are required to stay onsite when not serving a paying client, the spa pays them an hourly rate (just about min. wage) to sit around and fold sheets, etc. Not enough hours to rate fulltime employee status and earn benefits, but it's better than what yours is doing to you. Now, as RR just remarked, even here the casinos may not be required to pay the hourly, but they do pay it for whatever reason IN ADDITION to whatever the part time MT earns on commission for actual massage..
Maybe you should visit the wage-and-hour people who enforce minimum wage laws.
© 2024 Created by ABMP.
Powered by
