How does one calculate overtime pay due to plaintiffs who were
erroneously treated as "white collar" employees exempt
from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum-wage and
overtime requirements? Court decisions continue to
demonstrate much confusion and misunderstanding on this
score.
Nevertheless, there are preemptive measures employers should
take that will go a long way towards heading-off the potential
adverse effects of all-to-frequent fuzzy thinking.
Understanding what to do and why to do it requires an explanation
of the underlying concepts.
"Half-Time" Versus "Time And
One-Half"
Most employees for whom employers claim an FLSA executive,
administrative, professional, or derivative exemption must be paid
at least in part on a "salary basis". If a court
later finds that an employee's job duties did not meet an
exemption's requirements, then one thing to be resolved is how
to compute overtime compensation on that salary for the
employee's
