Reply #34: Or you might file a complaint under the Fair Labor Standards Act

[starroute]

I posted some guidelines above as to who is and is not exempt from the act's requirements. If you took a 30% pay cut from what I would guess was at most a $30,000 salary to start with, you'd quality as non-exempt on the salary basis alone. But beyond that, it's almost certain that as an office manager, you are not making independent decisions about matters of significance.

This would mean that your employer is required to pay you time and a half for any time worked beyond 40 hours a week -- potentially going back over the last two years.

Here's a Department of Labor page about how to file a complaint:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/complaint.htm

Here's a FAQ page:
http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/faq.htm

Both pages assure you that your identify will remain confidential, and the second one suggests, "If there is no record of your hours or pay, start keeping one. Every day you work, write down the time you start and the time you finish. Write down if you took time for a meal break and how long the break was. Write down every time you get paid, with the date and how much pay you received. You can call any Wage and Hour Office and ask them to send you free copies of our AWARE record keeping handbooks. You can get as many as you need; enough for you AND your co-workers."