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.
