Employer paying us different wages than initially agreed.
employment attorney Utah Aug 22, 2026
Location: Utah Hello and thank you to all who read this I started a new job almost a year ago and this is something that has bothered all of our crew ever since this has been a “policy” in the company. Little bit of backstory, I work in trade so I’m in construction sites all the time and our main office is usually about 45 minutes to 2+ hours away from the job sites. We all get paid hourly and we have to log our “drive time” for when we’re driving from site to site to be able to track our hours which I understand. However, my issue rises when they pay us different wages (minimum wage) during our return drive time back to the main office. Nobody ever knew that would be the case when they first got in to the job. We all had to ask HR about why we were getting paid differently on our drive time and it was because it was “policy”. I personally never read anything in the entire employee guidelines and policies that stated that employees will make a different wage at different times of their job. It was never put in writing. It was never said to me by management or HR during my onboarding process. I only realized it after my first paycheck when I noticed I was making minimum wage for a portion of my hours. Nobody from management helped me with this and my fellow employees all said that it was the same thing for them. That it was just “policy”. Shouldn’t wages and “policy” like that be made aware of before you sign anything? I have asked HR and management to point me to any verbiage or anything that states that my pay will be different during my drive time, but nobody can give me an answer. I can’t find it in writing anywhere in the company. I even gave the handbook to AI to give it an overview, and it said there was nothing either. This is the case for all employees but not for management. We are all bothered by the fact that nobody was told about this “policy” when they were first hired and we all had to figure it out ourselves but nobody gets an answer nor do they answer it at our company meetings. The excuse they give us that “it’s policy and we pay better than industry rates” kinda thing. It feels like they get employees on the team and avoid talking about the different pay intentionally and won’t answer persistent questions about it from any of the crew for reasons we would all like to know. The short version of my question: can my employer pay me different wages if I didn’t sign anything related to a change in pay? Or maybe the better question: shouldn’t my employer be making it known BEFORE employees sign an offer? I’m happy to offer more insight for anyone curious because I understand that this may be a little confusing. I’m just lost as to where to go to simply ask a question about this. Thank you again to all those who read!
