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The question has both a practical and a legal answer.

From a practical point of view, if you are working for an employer who unreasonably and unilaterally gives you job assignments which you find uninteresting and demeaning or for which you feel you are not being paid properly, you might be better off and happier if you obtain a different job for a better employer.  

If this is not a good option (due to financial obligations,  lack of other reasonable employment opportunities, or some other reason), you might raise the issue with your employer to see if the responsibilities can be changed to better fit your skills and desires, or if you compensation can be changed to reflect the amount or nature of your actual work.  Sometimes, supervisors or employers make decisions without really being aware that they are offending their employee.  In those circumstances, it is often possible to come to an acceptable resolution by bringing the problem to the employer's attention, presumably in a non-confrontational manner.

If changing jobs or getting the employer to change its position are not reasonable options for you, then you may need to consider the legal options.

I assume that you are working for a non-union employer so that you do not have a business rep or labor organization to help you, or a collective bargaining agreement which defines jobs, job duties, pay scales, etc.  (If there is a collective bargaining agreement, working through the union to raise possible violation of the agreement might be the most productive course to pursue.)

Assuming there is no collective bargaining agreement to define your job duties, there is nothing that strictly prohibits the employer from changing an employees job duties.  HOWEVER, there are a number of factors which, if present, might give you the basis for a legal claim against your employer.  Let me run through at least several of them.

First, many employers, even those who do not have unions, have employment manuals and/or policy manuals.  If your employer has such a manual, you should check to determine if the employer has violated some provision of the manual.  (Say for instance if the employer has a manual specifically defining or limiting the job duties for your position.)  Alaska courts have in some cases held that employment manuals essentially form part of the employment contract and have forced the employer to comply with the manuals in dealing with employees.

Second, if you are in a position which is exempt from overtime pay requirements, but given job duties which tend to make your actual job one for which overtime must be paid under state and federal law, you may have a claim for unpaid overtime wages if you work more than 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week.  These claims can be very substantial, since as a basic rule, your remedy would be three times your hourly rate (determined by taking your monthly salary and converting it to a rate for 40 hours a week) plus interest and attorneys fees.  Let me give a common example.  Say you were hired by a retail store as the "manager" of a department to be paid a salary of $XXXX a month.  If a substantial part of your work is actually performing the same work  performed by people in your department (say you spend much of your time stocking shelves, working the cash register, cleaning the facility, etc.), even though the employer pays you a monthly salary and gives you the title of "manager", you still may be entitled to overtime pay.  (If you have an overtime claim, you may have the option of retaining a lawyer to sue the employer or having the department of labor process the claim for you.)

Third, if the reason why you are given the new job duties is "discriminatory", you may be able to prove employment discrimination by your employer.  Let me give a few examples.  Say you are female and you were hired to be a security guard.  If the employer indicated that you had to make coffee and due the dishes in the employee lounge, you might have a claim that you were assigned the duties as the result of sex discrimination, with the employer stereotyping the extra duties as "women's work" which was not assigned to male co-workers.  Or if you are a racial minority and are assigned duties which might be viewed as demeaning or undesirable, which type of duties are not assigned to other co-workers (or even employees who had similar jobs prior to the time you were hired), this could show racial discrimination.  Similarly, if the work was assigned to others, but they received additional compensation whereas you do not, that could also be evidence of discrimination. (If there is a potential discrimination claim, you would have the option of retaining a lawyer to sue or having the EEOC or the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights process the claim for you.)

Fourth, if the work was assigned to you after you participated in some type of "protected activity," this could be evidence of illegal action by the employer.  For example, if there was some type of health or safety violation in the work place which you brought to the attention of authorities, and thereafter you were assigned additional, undesirable duties, this could be evidence of illegal retaliation by the employer.

Finally, in Alaska, every employment contract (even an oral contract) is construed as containing what is called a "covenant of good faith and fair dealing."  Basically, this means that the employer has to treat you fairly.  The employer can, in some circumstances, be found liable if this covenant is violated. Say for example, if the employer lured you to Alaska, or away from existing employment to take the job, promising  you would have particular job duties and responsibilities.  If the employer unilaterally changes those responsibilities in a way which would reasonably be viewed as "unfair", the employer could be found to have violated the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.  However, proving this type of claim can be difficult since the "evidence" often involves one person's word against another's unless there happen to be documents (letters, e mail, contracts, etc.) which support your claims.

In conclusion, what "rights" you have will be very much dependent on the specifics of your situation, including your actual job, your personal characteristics (age, race, gender, etc.), the nature of your employer (large/small, public/private, union/nonunion, the nature of the additional duties imposed on you, the composition of the employers work force, and so forth.  As a general rule, the employer in Alaska does have a high level of discretion in assigning work to employees in order to conduct business in a manner which the employer chooses.  If the employer does not discriminate or violate some other legal requirement (like the requirement to pay overtime), or treat you in a manner which a court or jury would find to be grossly unfair and for improper motivation, the employer would have the right to change and employee's job duties.  If the "facts" of your employment tend to show circumstances such as those discussed above, then you might have a legal basis to contest the employer's actions.

As noted at the outset, in many cases, your best approach might be to take a practical approach and just change employment rather than continuing to have to deal with a bad employer.

Note:  This material was prepared and submitted by Anchorage attorney Peter Partnow of Lane Powell Spears Lubersky, LLP.  Mr. Partnow is a member of the Alaska Bar Association's Employment Law section.