Alabama Employment Law: Is it legal for a employer to cut benfits offered in verbal contract?

You probably have a legitimate complaint on the overtime unless you are salaried employees.

AS far as benefits, unless they are collectively bargained for or covered by a union or contract, as long as you are getting minimum wage, those amounts are a negotiation between you and your management.

This is long winded so to be brief: Yes they can, Yes they can AND No you are not due any sort of compensation.

Alabama is a right to work state. This means employers can change any part of their compensation package (as long as there is no union contract or collective bargaining agreement in effect), including vacation, sick time, hourly wage, etc as often and in any way they want. They only law they have to stay in accordance with is the Federal Minimum Wage, which I believe is somewhere in the $7.75 range.

If you have accumulated a lot of overtime in the past, you may be able to contact the Labor Relations Board in Alabama and file a complaint to address the lack of overtime pay. Unless you're a commissioned sales person, they must pay overtime for hourly employees.

Once you become salary, any overtime worked is on the house. You are officially FREE LABOR after 40 hours. You will not be paid overtime. You can complain and they'll just show you the door, thinking if you can't get it done in 40 hours, perhaps someone else will. Some companies though will offer "trade-out" time. If you work 50 hours, four weeks straight, they would owe you a week off. Keep in mind that only some companies offer this. These are typically the type of companies with a talented workforce that must be kept happy, otherwise that talent goes somewhere else. Sorry to say, but your company sounds like a puppy mill. In other words, it is filled with unskilled, cheap labor and anyone and everyone can be replaced very easily.

Commissioned Sales people are compensated under the "fluctuating half-time, overtime coefficient" (they named it, not me), which is referred to in the real world as "Chinese Overtime." Chinese Overtime is basically a formula created by the Department of Labor that ensures commission sales people are paid overtime to an extent that guarantees compliance with the Federal Minimum Wage. I think I have the record at a company I used to work for ($4.12 per hour of overtime pay). Sometimes it was $20/hr, sometimes it was $4/hr. It all depended on how much commission I made. And yes, we were all paid fairly well so we had a little contest to see who could earn the lowest overtime rate.

Sounds to me like this job isnt worth it. If everyone enjoys what they are doing and want to continue to do so, contact the Teamsters or whatever labor union is appropriate. They can help you organize the labor at your company into a strong, unified voice. I personally cannot stand unions, but in this case, it may be the way to go.

Yes, during the course of any at will contract the employer can change the terms of your employment at anytime. Usually when the terms of the employment changes they a lot of companies reissue a revisied job description and give you a letter spelling out the new terms of employment but a company isn't required to do so. Unless you had a specific contract (which would be unusual unless you are an executive) then you are an at will employee.

Also I saw you said that they converted everyone to salary. Since you are a salaried employee you are considered exempt and therefore an employeer is not required to pay a saliried employee overtime.

When a company has to do this across the board with thier employees its usually a sign of finical difficulty inside ther company. I know from knowing small business owners that they generally feel bad about doing so but its usually the only way they can meet cost while trying to save everyone's job and not having to let employees go to be able to meet the old terms of employment. The economy is tough out there right now and hopefully it contuines to reboud and when it does hopefully they make good to thier employees.

If you are paid hourly, it is illegal for the employer to make you work "off the clock". You must be paid for all hours worked and overtime for all hours worked above 40 during one pay period.

Sick leave is a perk. It is not mandated by law. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Vacation is a different story. Vacation pay is part of your compensation. If you have earned, unused vacation, then the company owes you.

If you are salaried, you are not owed overtime pay.

As for the off the clock issue and your earned, unused vacation time, you could contact the Alabama Department of Labor to lodge a complaint against the company.

Good luck

Verbal contracts have little validity under law unless there are a lot of witnesses.

You should contact your state's employment office or the Federal Department of Labor if you think they're violating labor law.

Check the link below.

you would take delivery of a clean contract to signal. in case you fail to succeed in this then after 3 months you'd be deemed to be operating less than the recent contract. in case you don't like what they're doing then bypass alongside with it even as you locate yet another job. An corporation can do precisely about what he likes as he's the only finding out to purchase your facilities.