In article ,
Fred the Red Shirt wrote:


Bob Stewart wrote in message ...
FWIW, I am an attorney who works in this area of law and want to correct
a few of George's misstatements:
1. There is nothing illegal about requiring mandatory OT so long as the
employer compensates for it as required by law. If you don't want to
work it, you can refuse.
2. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), an employer is
not required to pay a lawfully salaried employee additional OT
compensation after the agreed upon base number of hours.

Thanks. But a salaried employee may be exempt or non-exempt, right?

100% correct.

If non-exempt and required to work OT, that employee must be paid at
time-and-a-half for that OT, right?

For any work over 8 hours in one day, *or* 40 hours in the week, *YES*

Example: if you put in 5 12-hour days, you're entitled to time-and-a-half
for the last 4 hours of the 1st three days, *AND* everything after the
first 4 hours on the 4th day. Thus, out of 60 hours actually worked,
you're earning 'straight time' for 28 of them, and time-and-a-half for
32 of them.

A slaried-exempt employee has
no such legal guarantee of overtime pay, right?

For an *exempt* employee, _regardless_ of how they are paid, that is correct.
An hourly exempt, however, is guaranteed the hourly rate for _all_ hours
worked.

Further, an exemption
cannot be claimed for an hourly employee, right?

Being paid hourly does -not- automatically make you 'non-exempt'. Again,
*EVERYTHING* depends on the actual job duties. *That* is what determines
whether the job is 'exempt' or not. In broad, "exempt" is management,
"professional" and/or some "technical" staff positions. Rank-and-file
"labor", including 1st-level 'supervisory' positions, is _almost_always_
the 'non-exempt' category.

If you _are_ paid hourly, there are other sections of Federal Labor law
that require that you be paid that hourly wage (at least) for *all* hours
worked. E.g., *even*if* "exempt", but paid hourly, they have to pay
"straight time", at least, for _all_ hours worked. It *IS* illegal for
them to require an 'exempt' _hourly_ employee to put in "unpaid overtime".
However, an exempt hourly employee is -not- "entitled" to time-and-a-half,
or any other 'differential' (holiday, night, week-end, etc.) for excess
work. Caveat: if employer has a practice of paying any such differentials
to _any_ such 'exempt' hourly persons, they must do the same for *all*
such exempt hourly persons.

3. Most importantly, given the work you describe, there is no way you
could lawfully be classified as a salary-exempt employee under the FLSA.
The U.S. Department of Labor or its Florida equivalent can help you.

Yes, but that help might get teh shop shut down entirely. That might
be a good thing to have happen before the OSHA violations result in
loss of life.

--

FF