We expect that our dealership clients are now familiar with the
U.S. Labor Department's continued attack on the exempt status
of dealership service advisors.
In April 2011, the DOL disavowed its 24-year-long acknowledgment
that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's Section
13(b)(10)(A) overtime exemption applies to automobile-dealership
employees doing the typical work of service writers, service
advisors, etc. Instead, DOL seemed to embrace the
view that the absence of a literal reference to these kinds of
employees in Section 13(b)(10)(A)'s "salesman, partsman,
or mechanic" formulation meant that they are subject to the
FLSA's overtime requirement.
DOL said what it did despite the fact that, since the 1970s,
five federal courts had looked at the same language and ruled the
other way. In fact, as of April 2011, every reported court
decision to consider the issue determined that dealership employees
who are selling service and parts to customers are within
