The Fair Labor Standards Act

The Fair Labor Standards Act

FLSA requires observance with payment of minimum wage. The federal minimum wage according to the US department of Labor "for covered nonexempt employees is $5.15 per hour. The federal minimum wage provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Many states also have minimum wage laws. Where an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages." (www.dol.gov) FLSA does not take the place of any state or local laws that are more favorable to employees. For Example, in the state of California, minimum wage is 6.75/hour, so the employee would profit from taking the larger of the two hourly wages. The FLSA explains "no employer shall employ any of his employees for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of [forty] hours . . . at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed." (Law enforcement issues and the FLSA) According to the FLSA, non-exempt employees may not be employed for more than 40 hours in a week without receiving at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay for the overtime hours.

The FLSA child labor provisions are created to guard the educational opportunities of youth and forbid their employment in jobs and under certain conditions that are detrimental to their health or safety. The "hours limitations" provided by the Department of Labor explain that 18 or older may perform any job, whether hazardous or not, for unlimited hours, in accordance with minimum wage and overtime requirements, 16-17 years olds may perform any non-hazardous job, for unlimited hours in accordance with minimum wage and overtime requirements. 14-15 years olds may work outside school hours in various non-manufacturing, non-mining, non-hazardous jobs. These jobs are limited to 3 hour on a school day, 18 hours in a school week, 8 hours on a non-school day and 40 hours on a non-school week. In addition, work must be performed between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when evening hours are extended to 9:00 p.m. (http://www.dol.gov)

For record keeping purposes, employers are required to keep records of both non-exempt and exempt employees under FLSA regulations. They must keep on file for non-exempt employees the name, home address and social security numbers. Also, when the employee's workweek begins and end, hours worked each work day and total hours worked each workweek. Regular hourly pay for any week in which overtime was worked, total daily or weekly straight time earnings, total overtime or compensatory time earned for the workweek (or period.). Additions or deductions from wages paid each pay period, the total amount of wages paid each pay period. For exempt employees, their full name, home address, and social security number are required, their gender and the beginning and end of the employee's workweek. By law, all these records must be kept on computer, paper, microfilm or other basic source documents, as long as they are accessible and are able to be reproduced.

A number of companies have a guiding principle that explains that overtime must be pre-approved. If the overtime is not pre-approved, the hours will not be paid. If the employee wants overtime approved ahead of time you must make a request to a governing body in your corporation, however, if the employee does not follow company guidelines, then disciplinary action must be invoked. In other words, you can write someone up for not asking ahead of time to work overtime. "But once overtime is worked you must pay for it." (www.womans-work.com)