Specific categories of employees are exempt from the act or certain provisions of the act and particularly from the act’s overtime provisions – they are exempt employees. A person’s exemption depends on his or her responsibilities, duties and salary. Bona fide executive, administrative like office managers) and professional employees (like architects) are generally exempt from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the act. A white collar worker earning more than $100,000 and performing any one exempt administrative, executive or management duty is automatically ineligible for overtime pay. Other employees can generally earn up to $ 23,660 per year and still automatically get overtime pay, so most employees earning less than $ 455 per week are non-exempt and earn overtime. Up until a few years ago, only workers earning up to $ 8,060 per year automatically received overtime pay.
If an employees is exempt from the FLSA’s minimum wage provisions then he or she is also exempt its overtime pay provisions. However, certain employees are always exempt form overtime pay provisions. This includes among others; agricultural employees: live in household employee taxicab drivers; and motion picture theater employees. Figure summarizes important guidelines governing white collar exemptions.
Figure
Primary Duties of White collar exempt positions
Executive (Three Duties are required)
1) Management of the enterprise in which the employee or of a permanent department or subdivision; and
2) Who customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees?
3) Who has the authority to hire or fire other employees or whose suggestions and recommendations are given particular weight
Administrative (Both Duties are required)
1) Performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers:
2) The exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.
Professionals (Either duty is sufficient)
1) Performance of work requiring knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instructions; or
2) Performance of work requiring invention, imagination, originally or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
1963 Equal Pay Act
An amendment to the Fair Labor standards act designed to require equal pay for women doing the same work as men.
The Equal Pay Act, an amendment tot e fair Labor standards act, states that employees of one sex may not be paid wages at a rate lower than that paid to employees of the opposite sex for doing roughly equivalent work. Specifically if the work requires equal skills, effort and responsibility and involves similar working conditions employees of both sexes must receive equal pay, unless the differences in pay stem from a seniority system, a merit system the quantity or quality of production or any factor other than sex.