10

The split-day plan and other schemes to fake a lower regular rate

Some pay plans are designed to make the regular rate look lower than it is. This chapter takes apart the three classic schemes and shows why the arithmetic always wins over the label.

In this chapter

• +Splitting an ordinary workday into paper “straight time” and “overtime” hours doesn’t change what was actually worked or owed.
• +A base rate set artificially low and topped up by a fixed “bonus” is still just wages, and the whole amount belongs in the regular rate.
• +A percentage-of-earnings bonus is only genuine if it can actually go up or down; one engineered to always equal the same flat sum is a disguised straight-time wage.