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Any Services Supplement up to Minimum Wage?? - curious
Posted: Dec 11, 2010
I hear often that you only get paid per line. I was curious if any of these MT services supplement your pay up to minimum wage if your line count pay falls below it.
Federal law requires that all EMPLOYEES receive at least minimum wage - Independent Contractors are on their own
[ In Reply To ..]Federal law requires that all EMPLOYEES receive at least minimum wage. That is the total for the pay period (not per day or per week). The MTSO has some wiggle room as far as making you use PTO (if you get any) or asking you to work on your normally scheduled days off, but if in the end your paycheck does not equal minimum wage times the number of hours as agreed upon by you and the MTSO, they must pay you the difference to equal gross minimum wage (if you get paid biweekly and your agreement is 40 hours per week, you must gross at least 80 x $7.25 = $580, which is the Federal Minimum Wage. Some States have higher minimum wages, so you have to talk to your Human Resources Department to find out exactly what your minimum gross wages would be).
MTSOs do not like to do this and they do keep track. If they have to pay someone “extra” without a really good reason, they will probably start trying to find some excuse to get rid of them before the next pay period ends. Not legal, but very hard to prove.
If you are an Independent Contractor, that does not apply. You are on your own.
Hope that answers your question.
Have a great Holiday Season.
I don't get supplemented - Tara
[ In Reply To ..]I am an employee working on production and don't get supplemented up to minimum wage. Minimum wage is about what I normally make too. Of course, my rate isn't anything to brag about either. Lately haven't even been able to meet my minimum line count, I hope that is just a slump due to the holidays. Still, I am glad to have a job these days.
If you are an employee, you should be receiving - min wage if your production adds up to less. sm
[ In Reply To ..]Only in an IC situation would you not.
Take your total pay earned divided by the hours worked. Each state sets a minimum wage; federal min wage is $6.35 hourly. If your state's min wage is higher than the federal, then your employer MUST guarantee your gross pay meets the higher between state or federal min wage.
$7.25 = federal minimum wage - Jane
[ In Reply To ..]True as of 2009. Just looked it up to be sure.
You're correct - I meant to say federal. :) - Thanks
[ In Reply To ..]nm
But, if a employee has plenty of work but cannot (sm) - Yochana
[ In Reply To ..]meet the 125 or 150 lph line count, don't you think that would let the employer off the hook? It's really not the employer's fault if an MT is slow. What ya think?
It doesn't matter what your LPH is ... please - sm
[ In Reply To ..]If you work 40 hours this week and your total earned pay is only $200, this equates to $5 an hour which is lower than at least the federal min wage. So, your company MUST pay you the difference to ensure your gross pay equates to at least minimum wage.
Now, the production requirements from your company are there as a performance requirement to maintain your employment.
I promise you that if they must continually pay you the difference because you don't make minimum wage, they will not keep you. They will performance manage you right out the door ... you are costing them, not producing enough.
As an employee, however, the federal government demands that they guarantee you make a minimum wage (gross).
At my company, that only works for 40 hours a week. - Doppelganger - (s/m)
[ In Reply To ..]If the lines I produced divided by hours worked came out less than 7.25/hr., then I'd get the minimum wage. Unfortunately, we all know that we work more than 8 hours a day, and we DON'T GET PAID FOR those extra hours. Yet we have to work them in order to meet the minimum required daily line count, in order to keep our insurance. So by keeping our insurance, we effectively cancel out the ability to earn minimum wage. If you take the 14-16+ hours per day worked, in order to make their line minimum, it comes out to way, WAY below minimum wage.
Gee, that's not what I've said yet. It is ONLY for - the hours you have worked.
[ In Reply To ..]If you are working only 24 hours a week, then they must guarantee you min wage for those 24 hours. If you work 40 hours a week, they must guarantee you for 40 hours a week.
No company has to pay you for hours not worked! LOL
If you are working 14-16 hours a day but only getting paid for 8 hours, then you are working OFF THE CLOCK and that is ILLEGAL -- both for YOU (it's called time fraud) and for your company (for allowing it and not paying you appropriately). You should stop doing that immediately and report it to the Federal Wage and Labor Board.
You are both working illegally if you are doing that.
Tell my company it's illegal! Please! LOL. - -(sm)- Doppelganger
[ In Reply To ..]My *shift* supposedly starts at 8:00 AM.
No work comes in until about 2:00 PM.
It bounces back and forth between available work, and NJA, all afternoon.
In the late evening/early morning hours, it finally becomes steady.
We have a minimum number of lines we must produce in order to remain insured, and employed.
We have a very slow, complicated company transcription platform.
We have mostly large teaching hospital clients, with highly technical reports, and a high ESL ratio.
The work takes longer than most standard S.O.A.P. notes to transcribe, because every case is unique, and usually rare. There are no templates.
The NJA gaps are short enough that it's not quite worth it to get up and go do something else (like a 2nd job), but long enough that they weigh heavily on our productivity.
Thus, a minimum line requirement for the day, which might take 7 or 8 hours to transcribe under easier circumstances, routinely takes 12-14+ hours to achieve.
We know it's illegal not to pay us for hours over 40 per week, but the MTSO gets away with that little detail because they *CLAIM* that "it should be easy for us to produce the work within an 8-hour timespan." We know that is false. So do they.
We are paid by the line, not the hour. We are expected to produce time cards at the end of each pay period. Nothing about them is truly accurate. All the MTSO cares about is that whatever fictional hours we put on there adds up to 40 hours per week, and that we meet our minimum lines. Whatever we have to twist, bend, or lie about in order to achieve those numbers, is (according to them) not their problem.
They get away with this because if called out on this, they simply claim that the MT in question is so inept that they can't produce the standard amount of work in the standard amount of time. Forget about the fact that it's far more difficult and time-consuming than "standard" transcription.
It's a racket. They bend the rules, and they expect us to do the same, if we want to work. Sure it's illegal. But very few MTs have the guts to put their own necks and livelihoods on the line in order to have the law crack down on this industry. And that's exactly what the MTSOs bank on, and they laugh all the way to the bank.
You are as guilty as they are if you are doing it. - No sympathy here.
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Tsk! Well, put me in jail, then - at least I'd get a - bed and three squares a day.
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