Maine Overtime Labor Law

June 30th, 2005 Posted by Mark

Extra, extra! Read all about it. Maine has altered its overtime labor laws to match new federal regulations regarding white-collar employee exemptions for overtime pay. Effective June 29, 2005, if I were an employee who earns a salary, I would be exempt from overtime pay as long as I was in a “bona fide”—as the law states—capacity as an executive, administrator or professional.

The other clause to this rule is that I, as the salaried employee, must make an annual salary that is greater than 3000 times the state’s minimum wage, when figured out to a year, or greater than an annual wage determined in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, whichever is greater. If that’s the case too, then I don’t earn overtime pay.

Otherwise, the overtime labor laws in Maine stay the same. They follow the basic guidelines of the federal FLSA when it comes to work week hours and overtime pay rate. For example, in Maine, as in the federal statutes, the regular work week consists of 40 hours. If I as an employee work more than 40 hours a week, then I am entitled to time and a half for every minute of every hour that I work over that 40 hours.

Maine’s overtime labor laws, though, diverge a bit from the federal laws when it comes to exemptions, or employees that don’t get overtime pay (besides the salaried employees that I mentioned above).

For instance, if I were a seamen or marine, I would not earn overtime pay from my boss. Other jobs that don’t get overtime pay include anyone involved in the making, storing, or marketing of farm products, meat and fish, or any perishable items. Also included are employees at restaurants, hotels, and motels, automobile salespeople, vehicle mechanics, and car-parts salesmen. If I worked any of those jobs, my employer would not be legally bound to pay me time and a half for my overtime hours.

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Posted in Employment Laws, Maine, Overtime, Wage and Hour

  1. Posted by: Daniel Sayce

    I have a question about overtime pay. I was working on a job with 2 other hourly employees that had a specific deadline. We were building a boat for a boat show. When we started it we were told by management that overtime was not an issue and that it was expcted. The first week we worked arround 60 hours each and did get overtime pay. The second week we started out wrking 12 hours a day and did this for Monday, Tues and Wed.. Thursday morning when the boat was completed, we were told we had to take Friday off in order to minimize the OT.. Is this legal?? Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

  2. Posted by: Amelia

    Hi Daniel! Yes, unfortunately this is entirely legal as long as employees who worked more than 40 hours in the week were paid overtime. In fact, many business owners would say that it is good management.to minimize overtime. For a more indepth discussion, please post your question on our sister site at http://www.laborlawtalk.com. And thanks for reading the blogs! ~ Ameila

  3. Posted by: Anne

    To continue the overtime discussion, what about THIS employer: the job is an hourly wage job based on 40 hours per week. There are a certain amount of client contact hours required per week and there is no way one can achieve those required contacts and do all the traveling and paperwork involved in 40 hours. Everyone works overtime but the employer has for years denied that the job requires more than 40 hours. The average employee in this job puts in at least 10 to 20 hours overtime per week, for no extra compensation. Any ideas on what can be done?

  4. Posted by: Amelia

    Hi Anne! Under both federal and Maine law, employers must pay houly workers for all time worked. Period. If the employer thinks Sara should be able to complete her work in 40 hours, but she spends 60 hours doing it, he must pay Sara for the 60 hours. (It would be acceptable for the employer to reprimand Sara if he felt she was not being efficient enough, but it is not legal or acceptable for an employer to say “I’ll pay you for 40 hours regardless of how many you work” to an hourly employee.)
    Even if the employer does not authorize the overtime, he or she must pay the employee for all hours worked.
    This actually sounds more like a salaried arrangement to us. Salaried employees are paid a set salary per week. Some salaried employees are still entitled to overtime. For a complete discussion, post your question on our sister site at http://www.laborlawtalk.com HTH, and thanks for reading the blogs!~ Amelia

  5. Posted by: lynne

    My question is: I am a fulltime employee and i just took vacation time for part of the week. I generally work Mon-Fri from 8-5 with an hr for lunch totalling 40 hrs. this week I took 3 days vacation, so I showed on my time sheet 3 days of vacation plus two days working which still totaled 40 hrs of pay. My boss asked me if I could work saturday to cover for someone who could not come in, and I said ok knowing or assuming it was overtime, for a 4 hour Saturday. My boss told me after the fact that being part of my work week was a paid vacation, that I am not entitled to overtime. True or false?

  6. Posted by: Amelia

    Hi Lynne! True. Sorry, but your boss is in the right here. Under federal and state law, an employee must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours per week. Vacation and holiday time do not count towards the 40 hours, because the employee is not working. So you are not entitled to overtime in this payroll week. For more indepth answers, post your question on our sister site at http://www.laborlawtalk.com. HTH, and thanks for reading the blogs!~ Amelia

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