09.12.06
Common FSLA Mistakes That Will Cost You
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) impacts employers regardless of their size. You can have as few as five employees or as many as five hundred plus. It doesn’t matter what your size is, when it comes to making mistakes under the FLSA law, it can cost you big bucks. For example, if you assume all salaried employees are automatically exempt from overtime, you’d be wrong. Paying an employee a salary does not mean that they are exempt from overtime. Each individual employee must qualify for one of the specific exemptions provided by the statute.
Another common mistake is for employers to deduct for meal breaks. Sure, you can deduct for a 30-min or 60-min meal break, but can you prove each and every time that the employee took that meal break away from their desk and weren’t working through their lunch break? Are they punching the clock each and every time they take that lunch break? Hope you can prove it because the Department of Labor squarely puts the burden of your hourly employees’ actual hours worked on you, the employer.
Do you have a rule that employees must have overtime approved in advance or you won’t pay? The FLSA does not draw a distinction between approved and non-approved overtime. If the employee works the overtime, you are required to pay time and one-half the regular rate for that overtime. Of course, you do have recourse if your employee violates your policy which is either writing them up or terminating them, but you are still going to have to pay.
These are just two of the many common mistakes employers make in dealing with the FSLA. As stated, these types of mistakes can cost you. The FLSA penalty provision permits plaintiffs in some circumstances to recover twice their actual back wages, and because it automatically entitles winning plaintiffs to their attorneys’ fees, even a minor violation can quickly become very expensive.
For more information on the FLSA and to confirm if your company is in compliance, check out the U.S. Department of Labor website at http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/.
