Wage and Hour
Most employees know that, unless their position is exempt, they are
entitled to overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 per
week. There are special rules for some types of jobs, especially
protective services such as police and fire. Certain types of
jobs are exempt from the overtime requirements, namely executives,
professionals (attorneys, accountants, architects, etc.), commissioned
outside sales persons, certain computer programmers and engineers and
administrative employees.
Executive, professional, outside sales and computer positions are
usually apparent. Sometime, however, employers treat positions as
subject to the administrative exemption, when in fact they are not.
Neither your title nor your salary determine whether you are subject
to the administrative exemption. Rather the important issue is in
your daily work activities that your primary duties include office or
non-manual work directly related to management policies or general
business operations of your employer or your employer’s customers, and
you customarily and regularly exercise discretion and independent
judgment.
Other factors considered are whether you regularly and
directly assist an executive or perform only under general supervision
and the amount of your time you devote to other non-exempt functions
(functions such as copying, typing from dictation, manual type labor,
etc.)
For example, if your employer gives you the title of supervisor and
puts you on salary, but you actually perform the same job as your crew
or employees you may still be entitled to overtime compensation.
It is especially problematic if you do not have any real authority or
decision making power. Simply making schedules and distributing
paychecks is not sufficient.
Do you have the authority to hire and fire, or at least make recommendations that are typically heeded by management?
Can you discipline employees?
Are you empowered to change or alter substantial activities to satisfy customers?
Can you negotiate with customers?
If the answer to most of these questions is no, you may still be entitled to overtime pay even if your employer states you are salaried.
