Overtime Claims and Minimum Wage
Do you work more than 40 hours a week for your employer? Are you receiving minimum wage?
The Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §201, ("FLSA") was passed in 1938 to remedy employer abuses in the workplace. It provides a floor beneath wages will not fall, premium overtime pay for those who work in excess of 40 hours per week, and it eliminated oppressive child labor.
Under the FLSA and New York Labor Law, an employee must receive payment at the rate of time and one-half his hourly rate for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week, unless the employee is exempt from these requirements as a professional, executive, or administrative employee, or some other exemption recognized under the FLSA.
Both Federal and New York laws allow employees to recover double the amount of wages owed, plus counsel fees, for an employer's failure to pay minimum wage or overtime. In addition, the owner and supervisors may be personally liable for wages owed to employees. Cases like this can also be filed as collective and class actions.
Many employers misclassify workers as exempt and pay a "salary" for all hours worked; they assume that this relieves them of the obligation to pay overtime. However, only certain employees are exempt from overtime. The major white collar exemptions are professional, executive and administrative employees. If you do not fall within these categories (or other exemptions) based on your work duties, NOT your title, your employer must pay you overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. Further, to fit within these white collar exemptions, you must be paid a salary of at least $1,125 per week under New York State Law (in Downstate New York) and $684 per week under Federal Law.
If you work more than 40 hours and are receiving the same pay every week (a salary), but your hours vary, and you are not exempt, based on your duties, you are being cheated out of overtime, even if you are paid above minimum wage. For instance, if you receive a salary $1,500 per week, are not exempt, and you work more than 40 hours per week, your wages are being stolen.
In addition, if you receive a flat rate of $600 per week and you work more than 40 hours, you are being paid below the minimum wage of $15 per hour in downstate New York, and your boss is cheating you.
Raymond Nardo, Esq has filed many overtime cases on behalf of employees in various industries and has collected millions in settlements for underpaid employees.