i know we have some lawyers on the board and wondering if this is legal in PA.

I worked at a company as a contractor for a few years in IS. A new system came online requiring 12 hour shifts 6 days a week for a month so they hired us (2 days before the required overtime) and advised us we are salary not hourly and will not be getting overtime and comp time is 3 hours worked=1 hour. If you are late or need to leave early it counts as vacation/personal time and will give you an occourance if not scheduled more than 2 weeks in advance. We now are required to have "on call" week every month and no additional compensation. Please note that my paycheck didn't get bigger when i came onboard. They advised that you now can't have off until feb. I start early (to help with 3rd shift issues) and was oncall but they were unable to reach me after 10pm i said i was sleeping but i am told this is unfair to the team and i must be available when i am "oncall" (i have to get up at 4am to get to work on time) and i need to get some sleep (i had logged into the system from home 6 times that day from 6-9 pm to assist)

It all seems to be way more than i asked for but not thrilled about the job market currently and i hate changes.

Any thoughts/advice out there?

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see anything illegal. It might be a crappy job situation, but that doesn't make it illegal.

Advice: I'd start looking for a new job.

I was faced with similar "oh, you now have to do this and this and...what? You want more money. Hehehe."

I got another job. Never been happier.

Yep, salary is a whole different ballgame. The overtime laws only apply to certain hourly wage earning jobs. There has been a movement afoot in Washington to reconfigure those as well. It would basically make office personnel and nurses not subject to overtime benefits either. It's an effort to distinguish between blue and white collar jobs. Blue collar gets OT, white collar gets their vasoline taken away.

what are the benifits of being "salaried"?

it wasn't like i was given a choice either :(

One of my benefits of being salaries is a constant paycheck. Even though I am not working the last 2 weeks of the year, I still get paid.

I think your situation stinks. Its a crappy job market, and they know it. therefore they feel they can treat employees worse.

a company tried to do this to my wife a while back.

she was "salary", which meant that if she worked over 40, she didn't get overtime. the part that wasn't right is that if she worked under 40 for whatever reason, they docked her pay.

to me, if that isn't illegal, it should be. Salary should work both ways, not just in the employers favor.

obviously, she didn't stay there very long

I am not a lawyer but, what I (think) I know of this is:

Making you salaried exempts you from the fair labor standards act, which requires overtime pay for > 40 hours. But, the company is supposed to have to give something up in order to get that nugget. They are not supposed to be able to pay you less money for working less. I was given to understand that they can make you take vacation/sick time etc., but cannot actually withold money, that they HAD to pay your salary (or fire you).