eCFR :: 5 CFR Part 551 Pay Administration Under the Fair Labor Standards Act

The term “other similar cause” refers to payments made for periods of absence due to factors like holidays, vacations, sickness, and failure of the employer to provide work. Only absences of a non-routine character which are infrequent or sporadic or unpredictable are included in the “other similar cause” category. To qualify for exclusion under section 7(e)(1) the bonus must be actually a gift or in the nature of a gift.

Knowing that it won’t significantly affect how you do payroll, consider adding a shift differential the next time your business requires weekend or overnight work. Scott and Renee are taxed the same way even https://adprun.net/ though they earned $600 in different ways. As their employer, you can take the same payroll deductions for their wages. Payroll taxes are calculated on gross wages or taxable wages, depending on the tax.

The extra compensation provided by such premium rates will be excluded in computing the regular rate at which the employees so paid are employed and may be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act. For example, if an employee is paid $5 an hour under such an agreement for handling general cargo during the basic, normal, or regular workday and $7.50 per hour for like work outside of such workday, the extra $2.50 will be excluded from the regular rate and may be credited to overtime pay due under the Act. Similar principles are applicable where agreements following this general pattern exist in other industries. If an employee whose maximum hours standard is 40 hours was hired at a salary of $200 for a fixed workweek of 40 hours, his regular rate at the time of hiring was $5 per hour. If his workweek is later reduced to a fixed workweek of 35 hours while his salary remains the same, it is the fact that it now takes him only 35 hours to earn $200, so that he earns his salary at the average rate of $5.71 per hour. Overtime pay is due under the Act only for hours worked in excess of 40, not 35, but if the understanding of the parties is that the salary of $200 now covers 35 hours of work and no more, the employee would be owed $5.71 per hour under his employment contract for each hour worked between 35 and 40.

  1. Accurately keeping up with time worked by non-exempt employees is critical to compliance with the FLSA.
  2. For example, how much authority does the employee have regarding daily business operations and running the company?
  3. Accrediting and certifying organizations similar to those listed in this section also may be created in the future.
  4. The claimant must deliver the claim to the appropriate office within the agency or OPM, whichever is deciding the FLSA claim.

However, a claimant may not file the claim with the agency after receiving an unfavorable decision from OPM. An OPM decision on a claim is final and is not subject to further administrative review. A claimant or a claimant’s designated representative may preserve the claim period by submitting a written claim either to the agency employing the claimant during the claim period or to OPM.

Subpart E—Overtime Pay Provisions

(2) The possession of an elementary or secondary teacher’s certificate provides a clear means of identifying the individuals contemplated as being within the scope of the exemption for teaching professionals. Teachers who possess a teaching certificate qualify for the exemption regardless of the terminology (e.g., permanent, conditional, standard, provisional, temporary, emergency, or unlimited) used by appropriate certifying entities. However, a teacher’s certificate is not generally necessary for post-secondary educational establishments. The areas in which the professional exemption may be applicable are expanding. As knowledge is developed, academic training is broadened and specialized degrees are offered in new and diverse fields, thus creating new specialists in particular fields of science or learning. When an advanced specialized degree has become a standard requirement for a particular occupation, that occupation may have acquired the characteristics of a learned profession.

The FLSA contains a number of exemptions from its minimum wage and/or overtime pay requirements. An employee who is exempt from the overtime pay requirements is not entitled to receive FLSA overtime pay. Therefore, we recommend you review a list of common exemptions before using the FLSA Overtime Calculator Advisor. The books show that the employee received $192 for the first 40 hours and $72 (10 hours × $7.20 per hour) for the 10 hours over 40, for a total of $264 and the balance as a bonus of $36. The employee’s regular rate in this week is $6 and he is owed $330, not $303.60.

FLSA Overtime Rule Coverage

As mentioned above, only non-exempt employees are eligible for FLSA overtime pay, but in order to understand which employees are non-exempt, you must first understand who is exempt. The Department of Labor issued a final rule on Sep. 24, 2019 increasing the salary-level threshold for white-collar exemptions to $684 a week from $455 a week. The final rule is effective Jan. 1, 2020 and is estimated to extend overtime protections to more than one million workers who are not currently eligible under federal law.

Fact Sheet: How to Compute FLSA Overtime Pay

Section 7(e)(3) provides for the exclusion from the regular rate of “talent fees (as such talent fees are defined and delimited by regulations of the Secretary) paid to performers, including announcers, on radio and television programs.” Regulations defining “talent fees” have been issued as part 550 of this chapter. Payments which accord with this definition are excluded from the regular rate. In no case may the regular rate be less than the minimum wage required by the FLSA. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are not subject to the FLSA pump at work requirements if compliance with the provision would impose an undue hardship (although State or local laws may still apply).

General Provisions

The employee thus receives not only the $24 earned in the 2 hours of work on Monday but an extra 2 hours’ “show-up” pay, or $24 by reason of this agreement. However, since this $24 in “show-up” pay is not regarded as compensation for hours worked, the employee’s regular rate remains $12 and the overtime requirements of the Act are satisfied if he receives, in addition to the $504 straight-time pay for 42 hours and the $24 “show-up” payment, the sum of $12 as extra compensation for the 2 hours of overtime work on Saturday. Commissions (whether based on a percentage of total sales or of sales in excess of a specified amount, or on some other formula) are payments for hours worked and must be included in the regular rate.

Permissible methods of doing this are set forth in part 4 of this title, subpart B. This is true regardless of whether the equivalent benefits or payments themselves meet the requirements of section 7(e) of the Fair Labor Standards Act and subpart C of this part 778. Various Federal, State, and local laws require the payment of minimum hourly, daily or weekly wages different from the minimum set forth in the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the payment of overtime compensation computed on bases different from those set forth in the Fair Labor Standards flsa overtime rules Act. Where such legislation is applicable and does not contravene the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, nothing in the act, the regulations or the interpretations announced by the Administrator should be taken to override or nullify the provisions of these laws. Compliance with other applicable legislation does not excuse noncompliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Include any applicable special rate supplement or locality payment in the “total remuneration” and “straight time rate of pay” when computing overtime pay under the FLSA.

(a) Time spent by an employee adjusting his or her grievance (or any appealable action) with an agency during the time the employee is required to be on the agency’s premises shall be considered hours of work. (4) Time spent by an employee performing work for the agency during a period of training shall be considered hours of work. (b) An employee who travels from home before the regular workday begins and returns home at the end of the workday is engaged in normal “home to work” travel; such travel is not hours of work.

(b) The regular rate of pay specified in the contract may not be less than the applicable minimum rate. There is no requirement, however, that the regular rate specified be equal to the regular rate at which the employee was formerly employed before the contract was entered into. The specified regular rate may be any amount (at least the applicable minimum wage) which the parties agree to and which can reasonably be expected to be operative in controlling the employee’s compensation.

The regular rate includes all remuneration for employment except certain payments excluded by the Act itself. This requirement insures that the employer cannot pay subminimum nonovertime rates with a view to offsetting part of the compensation earned during the overtime hours against the minimum wage due for the workweek. The section 7(f) contract must provide for compensation at not less than one and one-half times the specified regular rate for all hours worked in excess of the applicable maximum hours standard for the particular workweek. All excessive hours, not merely those covered by the guarantee, must be compensated at one and one-half times (or a higher multiple) of the specified regular rate. A contract which guaranteed a weekly salary of $169, specified a rate of $3.60 per hour, and provided that not less than one and one-half times such rate would be paid only for all hours up to and including 462⁄3 hours would not qualify under this section. The contract must provide for payment at time and one-half (or more) for all hours in excess of the applicable maximum hours standard in any workweek.

(6) The agency and the trainee understand that the trainee is not entitled to the payment of wages from the agency for the time spent in training. (1) The term recognized organizational unit is intended to distinguish between a mere collection of employees assigned from time to time to a specific job or series of jobs and a unit with permanent status and function. A recognized organizational unit must have a permanent status and a continuing function. For example, a large human resources department might have subdivisions for labor relations, pensions and other benefits, equal employment opportunity, and recruitment and placement, each of which has a permanent status and function. Customarily and regularly means a frequency which must be greater than occasional but which may be less than constant. Tasks or work performed customarily and regularly includes work normally and recurrently performed every workweek.