OVERTIME HYPOS


Hypo No 1.

Ray, a resident apartment manager at an over 16-unit complex, is scheduled to maintain office hours form 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday. Additionally, Ray is to show apartments to prospective tenants from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every weekend. For this, Ray is given a salary of $2,000 a month. Is there a overtime violation?

Answer: Yes!


Rational: A salary only applies to 40-hours of work a week for all employees that are not exempt from the Labor Code (see note below). Here, Ray's salary would only apply to the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday (40-hours). Thus, Ray is not being compensated for the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. spent on the weekend (8 hours). Additionally, this time must be compensated at 1.5 times the normal hourly rate, which would be $11.63 ($2,000 a month / 4.3 weeks per month / 40 hours per week). Thus, his overtime rate is $17.44 an hour.

Note: An employee must make at least $2,322 a month to be exempt from the labor code, and, on top of that, the employee must exercise a great deal of independent control as a manager.

Hypo No 2.

Ray, a Resident apartment manager at an over 16-unit complex, is scheduled to maintain office hours form 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. every day, including the weekends. This works out to just under 40-hours per week. Ray's employer keeps time records and pays Ray $6.75 per every hour worked. Is there a violation?

Answer: Yes!


Rational: A employer is required to pay an employee overtime (time-and-a-half) for every hour worked on the seventh consecutive day in any given workweek. Here, Ray is employed seven-days a week, thus, for one of those days, Ray should be compensated $10.12 per hour.