TLDR: my BF who works a maintenance job and is salaried working hella over time, has no one working underneath him and is this falsely labeled a manager so they don't have to pay him overtime. He's on call 24/7 and working way too many hours. How can I help him get the money he deserves?
My BF was hired as “chief maintenance officer” for a small hotel group managed by a large corporate entity in the state of Utah about 9 months ago. He is a salaried employee, and often works well over 40 hrs per week during the busy season, and does not make overtime on those hours. For the last 5 months he has been the only maintenance worker onsite for two hotels. During the busy season sometimes he has one extra maintenance guy that will give him two days off a week. Though days off for him often aren't truly days off because he still has to come in mornings for a couple hours and take care of the pool and hot tub every single day, as he is the only certified person on site.
His work is regularly understaffed, because we live in a resort town with very limited housing, which leads to limited workers for hire. His work demands he take on huge jobs like painting every bathroom in the hotel with no extra hired help, on top of his regular duties. AND he is on call 24/7 because there is no one else to come in when a customer can't figure out how to work the damn TV or turn on the air conditioner/ heater. His work desperately needs to hire more staff, but that would require offering very competitive wages considering the high cost of living in our town, and they just don't seem down to compete to bring in really anyone to help him. Especially since they have him to keep everything running for no extra money.
Awhile back on this sub I read a post about non-exempt versus exempt employees, and the legal definitions of both. Non-exempt employees must be paid over time. To be considered exempt, he would need to be a manager with two or more people working directly under him that he oversees and the power to hire and fire people. He's never had two employees working directly under him, he has mostly been the only maintenance person on staff. He's also been left out of EVERY manager meeting that has brought in maintenance managers from other hotels in the group (he works at the no frills run down motels that the new owners refuse to put any money into.) Basically it looks to me like they just slapped the manager title on him to avoid paying him over time.
After I read about exempt vs non-exempt employees on here I asked him to start keeping track of his hours. So far the plan is to get the manager directly above him to admit in a text message or email that no one is working below him at this time (or anytime really) and he does not have any say in the hiring or firing of people. Once we obtain this evidence, I am planning on helping him reach out to the labor board in our state, in the hopes that they will force his employer to pay him for backed overtime.
Am I going about this the right way? Is there anything I'm missing? Do we need a lawyer? Should he call this out to his manager directly and ask for overtime pay (in writing of course)? They've been working him way too hard with absolutely no help, and I would hate to see them pull some fuckery and screw him out of the money he deserves if they get any kind of heads up he's after the compensation due to him. His biggest fear is that they will switch him to hourly and cut his hours way back, especially during the slow season. He could always get another job here, but he really likes his current job and that he doesn't have people constantly breathing down his neck, so this is not ideal.
It kills me how employers who are lucky enough to get very skilled hard workers will just work them to the bone instead of hiring a full staff, because it saves them $. I told him as long as he continues to work so hard, and work so many hours they have no incentive to hire more people because he always manages to keep the hotel running for them with a skeleton crew. I'm honestly convinced that this whole “labor shortage” is just a bunch of business owners who realized during the pandemic that they could still keep their business running with a fraction of their usual employees and saw how much money they were saving.
Also I just want to say thank you, y'all fucking rock! I'm an RN, and see a lot of other nurses on this sub and it just makes me so happy. Pre pandemic I felt like a lot of people had lost touch with how important unions and workers rights are, just warms my heart to see everyone working together and fighting so hard.