Overtime Advisor : New York Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Greenwald Doherty Law Firm : NY Wage & Hour & Discrimination : Overtime Advisor Law Blog

How can an employer tell which computer employees are exempt from the overtime pay requirements? What does an exempt computer employee look like? They are a rare bird—but occasionally, computer employees may fit into one of the regulation’s exemptions.

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Some employers think that overtime compliance is optional and even a luxury, especially in a difficult economy. But think again. Failing to comply with the overtime laws could invite an audit by the state or federal department of labor, which in itself is an expensive and invasive process.  

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In another decision addressing the rampant misuse of the outside sales and administrative exemptions by companies, the Court of Appeals reversed a prior favorable decision for Novartis in In re Novartis Wage and Hour Litigation. The Court found that the sales representative were neither exempt outside sales people nor exempt administrative employees.

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If non-exempt employees work, they are supposed to be paid for their time, as a Boston hospital learned that just settled a class-action overtime lawsuit for $8.5 million. As we discussed last year (Perils of Having Employees Work Through Lunch)

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In Joel Greenwald’s blog on April 30^th, he wrote about The Employee Misclassification Prevention Act (“EMPA”).  EMPA is making its way through Congress and was the subject of a hearing by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on June 17^th.  The Committee heard testimony from Seth Harris, Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Labor, as well as the New York State Department of Labor Commissioner Colleen C. Gardner and others. 

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Just because an employer or its supervisors tell employees not to work overtime or there is a written policy forbidding employees from working overtime, does not mean that overtime wages do not need to be paid to employees who work overtime hours. Workers who are not otherwise exempt under the overtime laws and who actually work more than 40 hours in a week must be paid overtime – even if they are instructed not to work overtime. 

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When casino banquet servers asserted claims that they were due overtime pay under Nevada’s state wage and hour law, the casino pointed to the union Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) which provided for a different compensation method and claimed that no overtime pay was owed. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

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Employers tend to assume that by paying employees on a “piece rate” basis, they are not obligated to pay overtime when the employees work over 40 hours in a workweek.  However, a recently filed class action overtime suit illustrates the dangers of making that assumption.  The suit alleges that Wave Comm, an Arizona-based cable company, failed to pay overtime to its cable installation technicians.   

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Given the estimated tens of thousands of employers that misclassify their employees as independent contractors, on April 22, 2010, an Ohio senator introduced The Employee Misclassification Prevention Act to provide workers with benefits they are not entitled to as independent contractors. Only those classified as employees are entitled to the protections of wage and hour laws, employment discrimination laws, and unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance. This federal legislation would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and permit penalties for improperly labeling workers as contractors.

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