Commission Pay vs Minimum Wage Pay in Michigan

Where I work there are two sides to the store. My side and the Verizon side. The Verizon employees work on a wage ($4 per hour) + commissions.

Each month we have a store wide meeting. Each employee earns their commission wage while at the meeting. Is the store required to pay them state minimum wage while at the meetings since the store is closed and they are unable to earn commissions?

Only reason I ask is because most of the employees (not including myself - I live like 5 minutes away) live about an hour away and it actually costs them about $6 to attend the monthly meetings. One of my friends here that work on that side brought it up to me so I figured I would ask.

Don't know, Isaac.

Is attendance at these meetings mandatory?

Yes attendance is mandatory - they are an hour long. I forgot to mention that it would only apply to those people who have a scheduled day off on the day of the meeting as they cannot stay and make any more money after the meeting.

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Originally Posted by ictponder

Yes attendance is mandatory - they are an hour long. I forgot to mention that it would only apply to those people who have a scheduled day off on the day of the meeting as they cannot stay and make any more money after the meeting.

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Logic would dictate minimum wage should apply, the $4/hr figure normally being coupled with the chance at commissions, so no opportunity for commissions during these meetings should - one would think - invalidate the $4/hr stipulation.

That said, I'm going to guess there are no clearly applicable guidelines.

You guys don't have minimum work hours? Here if you get called in its for a minimum of 3 hours work. (even if they only want you for an hour, they have to pay for 3 hours).

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Originally Posted by AgentOblivious

You guys don't have minimum work hours? Here if you get called in its for a minimum of 3 hours work. (even if they only want you for an hour, they have to pay for 3 hours).

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No, unless you are scheduled to work on the day of the meeting you have to go home afterwards, getting paid only for the hour. All store overtime was recently eliminated so they schedule accordingly. It works out good for me because I work every other Saturday, which allows me to leave at 11am the following Friday.

I know maryland and virginia also have a 3 hour minimum. I thought that was a nationwide policy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ictponder

Where I work there are two sides to the store. My side and the Verizon side. The Verizon employees work on a wage ($4 per hour) + commissions.

Each month we have a store wide meeting. Each employee earns their commission wage while at the meeting. Is the store required to pay them state minimum wage while at the meetings since the store is closed and they are unable to earn commissions?

Only reason I ask is because most of the employees (not including myself - I live like 5 minutes away) live about an hour away and it actually costs them about $6 to attend the monthly meetings. One of my friends here that work on that side brought it up to me so I figured I would ask.

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You should be able to get rather simple legal advice for something like that for free I'd imagine. $4 seems awfully low for base pay. I work for a cellphone company as well and our base pay is much higher than $4/hr plus commission.

As far as I know, Minimum wage only effect workers that are 100% hourly. Workers that are wage+(something) are not effected by the minimum. For example Waiters and waitresses have a base hourly wage that is less than the "minimum wage". They work for wage+tips if they are working setup/cleanup or any other duty where they can not earn tip they just get their hourly wage even though it is less than the "minimum". The same goes for commissioned workers. Some commissioned workers dont even get a hourly rate they still have to attend meetings.

I believe that the theory is that the wage+commission/required hours worked should be greater than the min wage.

My girlfriend is a waitress. She makes the 2.83+tips or whatever. During her mandatory meetings AND training where she cant earn tips, she gets paid min wage, 7.50 hr. She was told that was state law.

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Originally Posted by vroom4

My girlfriend is a waitress. She makes the 2.83+tips or whatever. During her mandatory meetings AND training where she cant earn tips, she gets paid min wage, 7.50 hr. She was told that was state law.

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See, I am very much inclined to agree with this. If they are working you without the possibility for commission, you would need to be paid minimum wage. Otherwise, under that logic you could potentially work an employee for next to nothing as long as once a week they had an opportunity to make commission.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/FOH/FOH_Ch21.pdf Their are exemptions on minimum wage pay for commissioned employees. After readoing that document I can't tell you what does or does not apply.

Does verizon make you push Android phones?...

You walk in the store and they are all like OMG ANDROIDS THE BEST!

Im switching to AT&T for crying out loud you guys have hardly any phones...

AT&T doesnt wait forever to put out phones either and sim cards... I heard AT&T's network is fine now.

Verizon actually wants the sales reps to push iPhones & iPads because they are the most expensive devices we carry. Our store, however, has a monthly phone cycle that allows all the sales reps to try a different smart phone every month and the store pays for it. This allows the reps to become familiar with every smart phone we carry. So far, not a single rep likes the iPhone after using a droid - not even the owner or the manager or our regional manager. I am not part of the cycle (they pay my bill but I had to sign a 2 year and buy the phone) as I do not work on that side of the store so I went with the HTC Trophy, a Windows phone and I love it.

Popular consensus where I work is that the iPhone looks great and is super smooth but the OS is made for people who don't want to think or simply can't figure out any other phone - mostly they just hate how the OS looks. The androids have devices that are just as fast and allow them to do whatever the hell they want. I went with the Windows phone because it's by far the most integrated mobile operating system I've seen out of the box - even more so now that I've updated to Mango. That and it's HTC, which makes the OS feel like silk under my fingers.

That being said, I would not have a smart phone at all if my work wasn't paying for it. A regular phone is fine.