Flag Hours vs Minimum Wage
THull
7 Posts
We pay our detailers by the flag hour. I've now been asked if a worker doesn't flag enough hours to equal minimum wage for actual hours worked do I have to pay the difference to bring their pay up to minimum wage.
Comments
I bet it is the amount of time spent on a particular job order. If I start to work on a car at 8:15 Start time...flag up, I work on the car changing the oil, etc. for 30 minutes, I fill in my paper work and return the car to the service manager, and turn in my paper work to the office at 9:00 the flag goes down. after a 20 minute smoke break or whatever break, I get another job from the service manager the "flag" goes up, I work for an 1 1/2 hour replacing an alternator, fill in my paper work, return the car to the service manager, fill in the paper work and the flag is down". The company charges the customer for the repair parts and the time rounded by the hour. The company pays me for the 2 hours of work that took up 2 hours and 20 minutes of my time at $16.00 and hour. I stayed on the work site, but a job doesn't come to me until after lunch. Flag remains down until I am assigned another job order.
In my opinion, if I'm right, you owe the employee for any time that the ee is on your premisses, waiting for a job order to come his/her way. It is called waiting time and must be at least the $5.25 minimum rate.
We pay our washbay attendant $6.00 per hour while he is waiting on the 18 wheel tractor/trailer rig to show up to be washed and disinfected (a shampoo and set), the employee gets a $4.00 washing bonus for each (shampoo and set)rig serviced. It takes an hour to wash a rig. Thus for that hour when he is washing he earns $10.00 per hour; when he is not washing and is "wait to wash" he earns $6.00. If one was to reverse the order of understanding it gets complicated and difficult to understand. We hire them for the waiting period even if it is for 8 hours a day, that way we satisfy the individual and the FLSA for a clear understanding.
The "flag-up flag-down" is I believe time recorded so that we customers are able to pay for the labor charge which may or may not be the same rate paid to the mechanic for the service work done on our car! Please let us know if I'm right or way off base!!!
Pork
Been in the car business since 1975(at the ripe old age of 18) and still refer to service tickets as ROs
(repair orders) and parts tickets as CTs(counter tickets) and oil changes will always be LOFs (lube, oil and filter)even though nothing gets lubed anymore!
Flag hours for mechanics are determined by the Chilton Book. Each and every
job is assigned a certain billable time. One hour, .50, etc. This is what the
customer is billed and this is also what the tech is paid.
There is no Chilton Book for detailing, but the "flag hours" are determined by
other factors there. New car? Used car? Customer off the street car?
Van? Mini-van? Full-sized van?, etc.
Thank you for the input. The monkey goes back to the detail manager at this point because he doesn't enforce the clocking in and out by time clock. Most
of his flagging detailers think as long as there is one punch for the day, that
proves they were here and that's all that's important!