What is FLSA
Many a time it happens that an employer does not pay the wages for the overtime work done by a worker due to a number of reasons. Unpaid overtime can be a major cause of distress among wage-earners. The FLSA, which is the abbreviation of the Fair Labor Standards Act is the law that protects the rights of a worker against such incidences.
What is FLSA?
It is a Federal law of the department of labor in the US, which is frequently referred to as the overtime law. It is a law that insures that all the hours worked by an employee are properly and fully compensated and that all the hours that the worker works as overtime hours are also fully compensated to the worker.
FLSA requires compensation for all of the hours worked over a prescribed threshold of time-frame. This time is typically of 40 hours a week and is applicable to non-exempt employees.
The FLSA overtime compensation for nonexempt employees is calculated considering all the hours an employee has actually put to work in a work-week. Hence, the very first step involved in applying the FLSA overtime to a situation is to find out how many hours of time has a nonexempt employee in reality worked during an entire week.
Which situations does FLSA provide protection against?
In addition to recoverable damages and attorneys’ fees, FLSA provides protection in the following types of situations:
- There are many activities during the working day of an employees that are related to the job and therefore are worthy of proper compensation. These activities may include, making or receiving phone calls related to the work, working through the lunchtime, taking the work home, working beyond the regular shift timings, looking after equipment used, etc.
- Sometimes an employee could be classified under exemption by mistake but who are in reality nonexempt. They often work regular hours beyond the overtime threshold prescribed by FLSA and also work off-the-clock hours that are compensable.
What does an FLSA overtime claim involve?
An employee can lawfully expect to be compensated for all the hours he puts into the various activities related to the job he is doing. This includes “on-the-clock” and “off-the-clock” hours which are both worthy of compensation from his/her employer. In case of a breach of this expectation from an employer, the employee who qualifies for a claim for an FLSA overtime claim under the following conditions:
- An employee being treated mistakenly by an employer as exempt from overtime requirements of the FLSA, when really s/he is non-exempt.
- Employers not willing to recognize and compensate the off-the-clock working hours of an employee. These are the hours the employee spends doing many job-related activities which must be fully compensated by the employer.
- An employer not willing to include the “wage augments” like the longevity pay, and to include it into the overtime pay of the employee.
Thus FLSA is a law that looks after the welfare of those employees who have been mistreated by their employers by denying their lawful right to get fully compensated for every hour they put into work for the employer.
The income of an individual encompasses many components. The take-home salary at the end of the month is just one aspect of the umbrella term income. Bonus, Vacation pay, sick leave, medical benefits and tax deductions also form a crucial part of an individual’s annual, monthly and daily pay package and can all be considered as wages.
Wages vary from company to company and depend upon the field of work and the terms stated by Florida Law. Under Florida law, the current minimum wage rate is $7.79 per hour. This law is enforced to set the basic standards for the pay and number of hours worked. With this law, the State ensures that an individual is paid at least the minimum wage. This may be inclusive of overtime and tip included, but this covers the minimum threshold that an individual is sure to earn in an hour’s work. Tipped employees may give certain types of employers in the service industry a tip credit, which permits employers to pay less than the minimum wage.
Break-up of Wages into Individual Income Components
- Bonuses Bonus is the extra pay packet that the individual earns at the end of the fiscal year. The bonus amount is equally dependent on the performance of the individual and the annual performance of the company. There are also performance based bonuses which give employees incentives based on accomplishing a milestone. These performance based bonuses can occur at any time throughout the year.
- Vacation pay There are no terms declared regarding vacation leave or pay in the state law. Hence the employee is liable to comply and receive a vacation pay as stated in his employment contract. Most companies provision a vacation leave in their policy or a pay out in accrue of vacation time.
- PTO Time Personal Time off (PTO), also known as paid leave is a requisite in most employment work policies. This is a combination of all the days that the individual is entitled to take a leave, without losing pay. The company or employer usually pools vacation days, sick leaves and personal days under a single compartment and leaves it up to the employee to utilize it as he wishes. In case of non-exhaustion of these leaves at the end of the year, the company may choose to provide an employee an option to ‘cash’ it out which means that the monetary equivalent of the surplus leave value will be added as an arrear to his income of the last month or the surplus leaves would ‘rollover’ to the next year. These options are no mandates and one or the other may apply as per company policy, since there is no mention of any specific or mandatory pto time provision under Florida law.
- Sick leave There are no terms declared regarding sick leave under Florida state law and hence the employee is liable to comply with the sick leave policy or provision as stated in his employment handbook.
- Overtime According to FLSA (Fair Labor Standard Act), there is no limitation on the number of hours a company or employer would require its employee to work, as long as the overtime due is paid accordingly (unless employee is exempt). The standard work hours set by the act is 40 hours per week, above which a minimum of 1.5 times the base wage has to be paid to all non exempt employees.Employers oftentimes attempt to illegally deduct an employees wage due to an allegation that the employee did something wrong. While an employer is entitled to prove his case, the employer is not permitted to unilaterally make wage deductions. This includes for making deductions due to an employee damaging property of employer, or any other type of deductions which are not mandated by the applicable tax code.Wage law is complex and esoteric. An experienced board certified attorney in labor and employment law should be consulted. The Department of Labor may also provide some assistance, however, because a violative employer is responsible for all attorney fees and costs, most experienced attorneys in employment law matters can help you with your wage dispute at no cost to you.