Federal Overtime Regulations Overhauled! (Continued from page four)
Diane Dennis Enterprises © 2004

White-Collar Workers (Continued)

Outside Sales Exemption (more detailed info)
To qualify for the outside sales employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:

• The employee’s primary duty must be making sales (as defined in the FLSA), or obtaining orders or contracts for services or for the use of facilities for which a consideration will be paid by the client or customer; and
• The employee must be customarily and regularly engaged away from the employer’s place or places of business

Highly Compensated Employees (more detailed info)
Highly compensated employees who are:

• Performing office or non-manual work and
• Are being paid total annual compensation of $100,000 or more (which must include at least $455 per week paid on a salary or fee basis)

are exempt from the FLSA IF they customarily and regularly perform at least one of the duties of an exempt Executive, Administrative, or Professional employee as identified (above) in the standard tests for exemption.

Other Laws & Collective Bargaining Agreements

The standards that the FLSA provides are minimum standards that cannot be waived or reduced by laws, regulations, ordinances, etc. These standards may however be exceeded by laws, regulations, ordinances, etc..  If there's a difference in the standards then the stricter standards must be followed.

In addition, employers may, on their own initiative or under a collective bargaining agreement, provide a higher wage, shorter work week, or higher overtime premium than required under the FLSA.

Collective bargaining agreements CANNOT waive or reduce FLSA protections. Similarly, the FLSA (and the 29 CFR Part 541 regulation) does NOT relieve employers from their contractual obligations under those collective bargaining agreements.

I hope you've found this article informative. As mentioned at the beginning (of this article), while this article cannot be taken as legal advice, it can be used as a good starting point in determining whether or not your employees qualify for overtime exemptions or not. We invite you to subscribe to our free newsletter if you have not done so yet. :)

For more detailed information about the new overtime rules, please visit the FairPay website http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm.