The Department of Labor’s Proposed Overtime Changes - August 2015
Many employers rightfully view the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) as a minefield, and it is one that may soon be even more dangerous. The FLSA requires employers to pay their employees one-and-a-half times their regular pay rate for any hours worked in excess of 40 a week. 然而, Sections 13(a)(1) and (17) provide exceptions for bona fide executive, 行政, 专业, 外销售, 电脑员工. Whether an employee qualifies for an exemption depends on a number of factors, including how much money they make and the specifics of the employee’s job duties (but, 与普遍看法相反, 不是员工的职位). The exemptions have not been revised since 2004, when the Bush 政府 raised the “minimum qualifying salary level” from $155 a week, 自1977年以来它在哪里, 到每周455美元(或23美元),660美元/年), and changed some of the exemption requirements.
2014年3月, President Obama asked the Department of Labor (“DOL”) to issue revisions tightening the “white collar” exemptions in an effort to extend overtime coverage to millions of additional Americans. 本月初, the Wage and Hour division of the DOL complied by issuing a Notice of Proposed Rule Making titled "Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, 行政, 专业, 外部销售和计算机员工."
The proposed rule more than doubles the minimum qualifying salary for the “white collar” exemption from $455 a week to an amount “equal to the 40th percentile of earnings for full-time salaried workers.” That would place the minimum salary at an estimated $970 a week by next year (or just over $50,每年1万英镑). By tying the minimum qualifying salary to earnings, the DOL is trying to avoid going years without raising the minimum. The rule would also increase the amount required to qualify for the “highly compensated employee” exemption from the current $100,000 a year (and the requirement that the employee perform at least one exempt duty) to the “annualized value of the 90th percentile of weekly wages of all full-time salaried employees,2013年为122美元,148 a year (the DOL has indicted that it is also considering whether to tie the future increases to the Consumer Price Index instead of wage percentiles). 根据美国劳工部的说法，另外还有4个.600万美国人(和36,000 “highly compensated employees”) will become eligible for overtime should the proposed rule be adopted.
令许多观察家感到惊讶的是, the proposed rule does not seek specific changes to the “primary duties” test, which is used to determine who is exempt as an executive employee. 而不是, the DOL “punted” on the issue by seeking comments on whether the current duties test is adequately screening out non-white-collar employees and whether additional changes should be made to the duties test. If this “comment seeking” seems a bit nebulous, that is because it is. 在理论上, the DOL’s final rule could make a number of changes to the duties test – including mandating what percentage of work time employees must spend on their “primary duties” in order to be considered exempt – without giving employers the chance to review or comment on the eventual changes. The DOL has also requested comments on whether incentive pay and nondiscretionary bonuses should be considered when determining an employee’s salary level. 有关更多详细信息，您可以查看 DOL的情况说明书规定.政府 在评论期结束之前.
Employers should also begin thinking about how these proposed changes might affect their own workforce. News coverage of the changes will undoubtedly increase as the implementation deadline approaches, and some employees may begin questioning their exemption status. If you have not done a recent employee audit, now might be the time to begin performing one or to at least being thinking about changes you may need to make in order to maintain or adjust your current employee exemptions.
一如既往，彭德律师事务所的律师 & 皇冠线上买球平台, PC are available to answer your questions and assist employers in remaining compliant with the law.