Articles Discussing Overtime Under The FLSA.

On March 7, 2019, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, through its Acting Administrator Keith Sonderling, published the long-awaited Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to revise the “white collar” overtime exemption regulations. The DOL proposes to increase the minimum salary for exemption from $455 per week ($23,660 annualized) to $679 per week ($35,308 annualized). Employees with total annual compensation of $147,414 (including at least $679 per week paid on a salary basis) – up from the current $100,000 total annual compensation – would qualify for exemption under the test for highly compensated employees (HCE).

The DOL’s new overtime rule, intended to replace the rule announced late in the Obama administration but subsequently declared invalid by a federal court, finally has made, or soon will make its way, to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a division of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Bloomberg Law has reported. OIRA is responsible for reviewing significant regulations before publication to ensure agency compliance with the principles in Executive Order 12866, which include incorporating public comment, considering alternatives to the rulemaking, and analyzing both costs and benefits.

The U.S. Department of Labor will send its draft of the long-awaited Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the “white collar” overtime exemptions to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review on or before Friday, January 11, 2019, as reported by Bloomberg Law and independently confirmed by Littler. OMB review is the final step before publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register.

Q. Our company’s busy season is coming up, meaning we will be asking employees to work longer hours. Our non-exempt employees will all receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Some of them will actually end up earning more per week than some exempt employees. We would like to address this by offering extra pay to our exempt employees who work extended hours during the busy season. Can we do this without converting our exempt employees to non-exempt?

September may mean saying goodbye to summer, but minimum wage and overtime developments across the country are still going strong. A nominee to lead federal wage and hour enforcement efforts has been put forward, labor agencies are beginning to announce their adjusted minimum wage rates for 2018, and state and local legislatures are looking to expand existing laws.

Q. Our organization has a policy of paying employees who perform certain kinds of work outside of regular business hours at 1-1/2 times their regular hourly rates. Do we have to pay additional overtime pay for these hours?

Employers who rely on the fluctuating workweek method to calculate overtime for employees should take a few minutes to review a new ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that draws some new lines around when the method may be used. Hills v. Entergy Operations, Inc. (5th Cir., Case No. 16-30924, Aug. 4, 2017).

The same week the Department of Labor removed two guidance documents governing joint employment and independent contractors, it indicated it will soon reconsider two contentious rules that have been put on hold. The DOL is proposing to rescind the so-called “persuader” rule that would have expanded reporting requirements for employers that use labor-management consultants for certain purposes, and plans to seek public input on the salary thresholds set in the “white collar” overtime rule. Both of these rules were prevented from taking effect by court order.

Q. Our school district has hourly, non-exempt employees who occasionally perform extra work for the district – for example, chaperoning a school dance, or taking tickets at home games. Do we need to track the hours that employees perform on these tasks and pay them overtime if their total work hours go over 40 for a single week?

With the Department of Labor’s recent changes to the salary threshold for white-collar exemptions set to take effect on December 1, 2016, many employers are struggling to find the best option for how to comply with the new regulations without breaking the bank. One lesser-known alternative that is receiving increased attention from many companies is the fluctuating workweek method of payment for non-exempt employees.

Executive Summary: The Department of Labor (DOL) has agreed to pay $7 million to resolve claims that it failed to pay overtime to thousands of its own employees. The settlement reached with the American Federation of Government Employees Local 12 (AFGE), which represents approximately 3,000 federal employees in the Washington metro area, brings closure to longstanding allegations claiming the DOL failed to properly compensate employees.

Since the U.S. DOL published its new overtime exemption rules, several people have asked me how one goes about converting a salary to an hourly rate that will give employees about the same amount of pay once overtime is factored in. There are really two parts to this calculation – one quite simple, the other a bit harder.

In a case of first impression, the Ninth Circuit held last week in Flores v. City of San Gabriel that an employer was liable to a class of employees for underpaid overtime compensation stemming from the employer’s failure to include cash-in-lieu of benefits payments in its calculation of the regular rate for overtime purposes.

According to a report from Bloomberg BNA, unnamed DOL staffers have stated that the salary threshold in the hotly anticipated FLSA exemption rules will be about $47,000 per year, down slightly from the $50,440 level suggested by the proposed rules published last summer. This is not an official announcement, so while the statement may well be accurate, we suggest waiting until the rules are actually published before employers take any definite action based on the information.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Final Rule raising the salary threshold applicable to the so-called white collar exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act will likely take effect within the next few months. The Final Rule was submitted last week by the DOL to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a necessary first step before publication in the Federal Register. The new regulations are expected to expand by millions the number of employees eligible for overtime pay.