Wage and Hour Law

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)  is a federal law that governs payment of minimum wage and overtime pay in today’s workplace. The Missouri Minimum Wage Act is a similar law.

Compensation Time Given for Overtime

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay their workers one and one-half times their normal hourly wages for all overtime worked.

Determining Eligibility for Overtime Pay

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines overtime as any time spent working after eight hours a day or forty hours a week and requires employers to pay their workers one and one-half times their normal hourly rate for all overtime they work.

The FLSA also provides exceptions to the overtime rule so that employers are not required to pay all their workers overtime.

Exempt Overtime Employees

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay most, but not all, of their workers one and one-half times their normal hourly rate for all the time they spend working after eight hours a day or forty hours a week.

There are three main exceptions under the FLSA for payment of overtime.  There are as follows:

1. Executive Exemption: To qualify for the executive employee exemption, the employee’s primary duty must be managing the enterprise, or managing a customarily recognized department or subdivision of the enterprise.
2. Administrative Exemption: To qualify for the administrative employee exemption, the employee’s primary duty must be the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers; and this duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.
3. Professional Exemption: To qualify for the learned professional employee exemption, the employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment. The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.

We have extensive experience with both federal and state wage and hour laws which apply to today’s workplace. Contact one of our attorneys to discuss your situation involving the Fair Labor Standards Act or the Missouri Minimum Wage Act.