Overtime question

Is it legal for an employer in Maryland to pay an employee regular time for work done over 40 hours in one week?

I had 93 hours in the last 80 hour pay period and they paid me regular time for all of that. They quoted as saying that they wanted me to put in the extra time, but I would be paid regular time for it because "overtime would no be approved".

I am not salaried, I work in a property management company, and I have earned overtime pay before at this job. It's my understanding that any work done over 40 hours in a week should be overtime pay whether the employer authorized the employee to actually work over 40 hours or not. "Authorizing" overtime pay is not something that is done by the employer because the law forces them to pay 1.5 X rate automatically.

I'm notlooking at taking legal action. I like these people and I want to correct the mistake for the future. I probably won't even address it.

Thoughts? I'm aggrivated already because the reason that I have to come in on my weekends and stay late is because my equipment wore out (a scanner) and my managers dropped the ball for four months in replacing the equipment / getting different equipment set up. Not only that, but suddenly it's my job performance that is the reason I'm four months behind in this one job-task -- everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten that I had no way of doing it. ("We're going to have to talk to you about your TPS reports").

Do you fall into any of these catagories? (from the Dept of Labor)

The following are examples of employees exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements:

Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools), outside sales employees, and certain skilled computer professionals (as defined in the Department of Labor's regulations); 1

Employees of certain seasonal amusement or recreational establishments;

Employees of certain small newspapers and switchboard operators of small telephone companies;

Seamen employed on foreign vessels;

Employees engaged in fishing operations;

Employees engaged in newspaper delivery;

Farm workers employed on small farms (i.e., those that used less than 500 "man‑days" of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year); and

Casual babysitters and persons employed as companions to the elderly or infirm. The following are examples of employees exempt from the overtime pay requirements only:

Certain commissioned employees of retail or service establishments;

Auto, truck, trailer, farm implement, boat, or aircraft salespersons employed by non‑manufacturing establishments primarily engaged in selling these items to ultimate purchasers;

Auto, truck, or farm implement parts‑clerks and mechanics employed by non‑manufacturing establishments primarily engaged in selling these items to ultimate purchasers;

Railroad and air carrier employees, taxi drivers, certain employees of motor carriers, seamen on American vessels, and local delivery employees paid on approved trip rate plans;

Announcers, news editors, and chief engineers of certain non‑metropolitan broadcasting stations;

Domestic service workers who reside in their employers' residences;

Employees of motion picture theaters; and

Farmworkers. Certain employees may be partially exempt from the overtime pay requirements. These include:

Employees engaged in certain operations on agricultural commodities and employees of certain bulk petroleum distributors;

Employees of hospitals and residential care establishments that have agreements with the employees that they will work 14‑day periods in lieu of 7‑day workweeks (if the employees are paid overtime premium pay within the requirements of the Act for all hours worked over eight in a day or 80 in the 14‑day work period, whichever is the greater number of overtime hours); and

Employees who lack a high school diploma, or who have not completed the eighth grade, who spend part of their workweeks in remedial reading or training in other basic skills that are not job‑specific. Employers may require such employees to engage in these activities up to 10 hours in a workweek. Employers must pay normal wages for the hours spent in such training but need not pay overtime premium pay for training hours.

I'm pretty sure there's federal laws specifying OT for over 40 hours in a week. The are screwing you. You can persue it and lose your job or take this as a lesson and not work more than 40 hours per week in the future. When asked, explain that you can't work additional hours without overtime compensation, sorry. Time is money and your time off is worth money to you. As we used to say, "Ass, Gas or Grass, Nobody Rides For Free." Of course, the "grass" part translates to Money.

I learned these hard lessons when I was working 500 hours/month on salary for $4/hr. And after being up for two or three days, I'd get looks of "Why do you want to go home? There's still work to do." No more. I have explained to my current boss(es) that they've got burned out Hess and I sell them 40 hours of my time/week. If they want more, we can renegotiate.

Just take it as a learning experience and don't get pee'ed off about it. Just don't let it happen again.

Wall-e wrote: Do you fall into any of these catagories?

Nope. None. There's not even a foggy gray area.

Dr. Hess wrote: I'm pretty sure there's federal laws specifying OT for over 40 hours in a week. The are screwing you. You can persue it and lose your job or take this as a lesson and not work more than 40 hours per week in the future.

They can't fire an employee for this even if the employee pursues legal action. There is a specific statute that I did see that talks about this.

Well really at this point they cant fire you if you have a good lawyer and dont do anything rediculous.

Yeah, they're not supposed to be able to fire you. But out here in the World, an employee that goes around suing his employer or reporting him for something like this won't be retiring at that place. Just sayin....

Dr. Hess wrote: Yeah, they're not supposed to be able to fire you. But out here in the World, an employee that goes around suing his employer or reporting him for something like this won't be retiring at that place. Just sayin....

the Doc is correct.. They can't fire you for that specific issue, but

If you could go ahead and move your desk down to storage B

and oh yeah... I'll be taking this stapler now.

Excuse me. I - I - I believe you have my - my stapler.

Yeah, you're right though. And an employee who does file probably doesn't want to continue working there anyway. Just sayin'.

An employer can't legitimately fire you for reporting them.

But, if an employer wants to, they can find some legitimate reason to fire you from the fine print of your original contract and you won't be able to prove that the real reason was because you reported them.

Salanis wrote: An employer can't legitimately fire you for reporting them. But, if an employer wants to, they can find some legitimate reason to fire you from the fine print of your original contract and you won't be able to prove that the real reason was because you reported them.

actually, the burden of proof that you weren't fired as a retaliatory action is on the employer. so they would have to prove that you weren't fired because you reported them, rather than you having to prove that it in fact was retaliatory.

One of my friends works for a hotel resort here in san diego. 2 of the employees, a guy and a girl, got in a physical confrontation. The guy got slapped and he proceeded to grab her by the collar of her shirt and shake her around like a rag doll telling her to never touch him again. Both were fired, both sued, both got their jobs back.

If you report them and have a lawyer you have almost no chance of loosing your job i would think. Might vary by state to state though. Sounds like your getting taken advantage of and both you and your employeer know it.

Z3, I think you need to verify the pay vs schedule that the employer has established.

I am guaranteed X hours of overtime per week. If I abuse it I can lose the right to work OVER my scheduled time.

If I work my nardicles off while abusing the overtime rule I get a bonus.

In my situation it all comes down to the opinion of some guy that couldn't do my job if it were life or death, and he knows it.

I found it interesting in Wally's list from the DoL that they specifically exempt foreign flag shipping. This is part of how the US Merchant Marine industry was destroyed/sold out. See, Exxon or some farm co-op in Kansas or any of the other shipping businesses can be a U.S. company and hire foreigners to work for them on these foreign flagged ships and pay them squat and get away with it specifically with the blessing of the Federal Government. It would be like you hiring a Mexican citizen to do your lawn work but only pay him $1/hr (like you could find someone to do that). In the case of these foreign ships, they do find people willing to work for next to nothing, as their other choice is starving in their pavement challenged part of the world. These various 3rd world countries put their people on these ships for slave wages. I remember in about 1980 seeing wage schedules for foreign flag vessels where an AB (deck hand) would make anywhere from $30 to maybe $300/month. A U.S. deck hand doing the same work on a U.S. flagged vessel would be paid around $5K/month. With this ruling, the US corporations can get away with not even paying minimum wage without even setting up fake offshore companies.

Be lucky they paid you for it. Here at the state of Florida they only add the time to your vacation time at 1x.

I think you are entitled to overtime pay but you may want to check

this link

What part of maryland are you in?

I'm pretty sure that the co I work for is still looking for people.

I started in the middle of April and I absolutly love this job, and the company is NOT afraid of paying overtime. it is a rare week that I don't get at least 10 hours overtime. Most times in a normal week, I'm closer to 15 to 20 hours and they don't even bat an eyelash!

I will tell you this, you can not be afraid of dookie or confined spaces, as this job deals with sewers however whenever I pull a manhole cover off and the new guy says it stinks, I just smile and say that smells like MONEY.

Let me know, if you are reasonably close to Baltimore send me a PM.

Chris Rummel

I know the companies I work for HATE paying me OT.. but you figure my base pay is $34 an hour.. and you can see why. That said, they may hate paying it, but if I work it, they will pay it.

If I manage to work OT without permission.. I CAN be written up for it.. but they will still pay me the 1.5 for that time

Though an employer can't fire you for reporting them, they can fire you, depending on state regulations.

GA is known as an "at will" state. That means that you are employed at the employers will, and you can be let go whenever they please for no particular reason whatsoever.

I know nothing about MD.

Walmart just got hit with a huge fine for not paying OT and othe labor law abuses.

What amazes me about Wal-Mart is that the stores that I have encountered while I was employed there were extremely strict about your time. They tried their best to make sure you arrived on time, punched in the minute you were supposed to work, took your full break, and punched out not one minute late at the end of the day.

Management there would constantly remind employees not to do any work while they were off the clock or supposed to be off the clock.

When I was in the home entertainment department, our biggest rule was "Make sure someone is in the department at all times!". That rule was voided when the night employee did not show up on time. Then it was "call a manager immediately, and if they don't show up by the time you need to leave, just leave."

My last job, they used to beg us to work overtime.... to the point that they would pay your base wage x1.5, plus a $3 shift differential, plus sometimes $20 an hour on top of that as extra incentive.

Did i mention that we got comission on top of that? Was nifty.

This job they limit us to 10 hours overtime a week.

I have spent the last 40 years trying Get Out of work!

Too much to do at home in the garage.

but then there's the Sumitt Racing bill...

If you work your 40 and still have more work to do, Ask your boss for permission to work overtime. when he asks why, tell him about the issues with equipment. if he says no, then go home and the work will be there tomorrow. if it gets into an issue and they claim that you are not completing your work in a timely manor, then mention their inability to provide the proper equipment to complete your work in a timely manor.

All else fails, look for a new job