Shared Billable Hours

mmscott

I have a friend who is a contractor. Most of the time he works for the state to fix potholes in the road. Other time is private jobs( schools, business etc). For the state jobs the company told him that there are a certain amount of billable hours at a particular rate say $15 and anything beyond that is his base rate say $10. But the catch here is this. If he works with John Doe then the billable hours are split. So if the billable hours for a job are 10 then they each get 5 hours at the higher rate. Everything else will be $10. They are a small business nonunion and this hasn't happened since he has been there. This seems to be a new policy. Is this legal at all? Should this be in writing somewhere?

sandra_d

I am not certain that I fully understand your question, but it certainly seems to me that a policy such as this should be put in writing.

To the best of my knowledge, employers of non-union employees are able to pay the employees any rate they choose to so long as they at least meet the minimum wage requirements for all hours worked, and pay at the correct overtime rate if any overtime is worked. In short, be sure that your friend is paid for all hours worked at a rate that is equal to or higher than the minimum wage. The employer's choice to operate this way is certainly confusing, and I can't believe it will make processing payroll easy, or the employees very happy.

I'll be curious to see if others have had experience with a similar situation. This type of scenario is new to me!