Welcome to the Overtime Lawyer Blog!
Hi again, friends. We launched the Atlanta Employment Lawyer Blog several months ago and are enjoying it so much, and getting such a great response, that we decided to launch another blog—the Overtime Lawyer Blog. This one will be devoted to tracking developments under the Fair Labor Standards Act—otherwise known as the FLSA. The FLSA is the federal wage and hour law that sets forth the federal minimum wage (which is currently $6.55 per hour) and also requires that most “blue-collar” employees who work more than 40 hours in a workweek be paid overtime at a rate of one and one half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week.
As we explain in detail on our website, although the FLSA applies to virtually all U.S. employers, it does not guarantee that all employees receive overtime or the minimum wage. If you are exempt from the FLSA, then your employer does not have to pay you the minimum wage, and you can be required to work more than 40 hours in a week without overtime. Although the rules governing the exemptions are extremely complex, as a general rule, you are an exempt employee if you are paid on a salaried basis (in other words you receive a fixed amount of compensation every pay period no matter how much work you do) in the amount of at least $455 per week, and the type of work you perform is either executive, administrative, or professional. These types of exempt jobs basically involve work where you have substantial authority over the operations of your employer’s business, where you are involved in the administrative end of the business, or where your job requires an advanced degree. There are a few other miscellaneous exemptions that we discuss on our website, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s website also has great resources if you have any questions.
If however, you are not paid on a salaried basis, or your work is not executive, administrative, or professional in nature, then in most cases you are not exempt from the FLSA and you are entitled to overtime.
Be aware that unscrupulous employers often try to avoid the FLSA’s stringent requirements by giving your job a title that makes it sound like an exempt position but in reality it’s not. For example, many fast food restaurants have jobs called “assistant managers” which sound like they are executive in nature, but in reality the work is little different from that of non-exempt cooks or dishwashers. If you are in such a job, you may still be entitled to overtime despite your title—always remember that labels don’t count under the FLSA.
If you are covered by the FLSA and your employer has violated the law by not paying you overtime, you have a number of powerful rights and remedies under the law. You can sue for all unpaid compensation and overtime you may have lost. Unlike the discrimination laws, you don’t need to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC before filing suit—you can proceed directly to court. Also, the statute of limitations under the FLSA is much longer than in a discrimination case, and the damages available to you are quite generous. And, as is often the case, if you and a number of your co-employees are victimized by the same wrongful wage and hour practices, you can band together and file a collective action—a special type of FLSA class action, which will help you bring the maximum pressure to bear on your employer to change its ways and pay you all the compensation to which you are entitled.
So, stay tuned! We’ll do our best to keep you up to date on the latest developments under the FLSA, as well as developments under Georgia law, and don’t forget that if there’s anything you’d like to see on our blog, something we may have missed, or if you’d like to talk to one of our experienced Atlanta overtime attorneys, just contact us and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
