TimeLegal News Archive

Labor laws in constant state of flux. (Reprint form USA today 3/10/2004)

(Editors note 12/20/2004, A major lawsuit is now pending in court in a overtime dispute by hi-tech game programmers who typically work excessive hours. These persons are asking the courts to reclassify their jobs to hourly employees as they do not meet the qualifications for management. Time worked records are almost non-existent, and jurors lean toward the plaintiff in these cases, this could cost millions in fines and back pay.)

Efforts to block a government plan to change some workers overtime pay fizzle in congress today after these provisions were stripped from the massive budget spending bill. This means that the Department of labor will issue new regulations in the next several months. What this means to companies is some workers will loose overtime and some will gain it. Under current federal regs, workers qualify for overtime if they earn less than $155 per week. Under the changes this would be raised to $425 per week. The job type also affects who gets overtime. The government estimates that roughly 640,000 white collar workers would loose overtime pay, and millions would gain it.

Federal mandates now say any work over 40 hours per week are at time and one half. Individual states have various floors and ceilings in determining Overtime Calculations also. In California for example, any time worked over 8 hour per day is overtime, 12 hours per day is double time to further complicate matters.

Erroneous reporting of personnel time worked can result in fines of 50 to 1000%. So the necessity of keeping accurate time records can be seen.

A recent court case upheld a employees complaint that management arbitrarily changed the hours worked to avoid overtime payments. the company could not provide documentation of the employees acknowledgement of the changed hours or the reason why they were changed. This company was fined $10,000 for their unfair labor practices, and ordered to make restitution to the plantiff.

It therefore becomes necessary to have all personnel sign and verify their time worked records, when changes become necessary, all parties must acknowledge and sign the modifications.