labor lawAdivision of labor law center

It is worth every salaried employee checking out the federal and Maryland minimum wage laws. Many workers make the mistake of thinking that if they are paid a salary then they are not entitled to overtime compensation payments if they work long hours of over 40 hours a week. This is an easy mistake to make, as it is not widely known to employees that they might be entitled to overtime payments, and many companies like to keep it this way.

Wal-Mart Inc. is one company that recently ran afoul of federal and Maryland minimum wage laws. Under the agreement made, they had to compensate nearly 87,000 employees in Maryland and throughout the country to the extent of $33 million. This consists of back wages and interest.

Apparently, Wal-Mart tried to get around the laws by employing trainee managers, programmer trainees and interns, on a salaried basis. They had to work long hours without receiving any overtime payments, as they were salaried.

However, the US Dept of Labor ruled that these employees, and many like them are “non-exempt salaried” workers. Quite simply, this means that although they were paid a salary, they were entitled to overtime payments.

General guidelines state that to be entitled to such overtime payments, the majority of workers must earn less than $455 per week (that is, $23,660 a year), and work more than 40 hours per week. If they fulfil these criteria then they are entitled to overtime payments for any hours over the 40 hours that they work each week.

Managers and other salaried workers that earn higher wages, must have decision-making powers within the organisation. Often, as in the case of Wal-Mart, they needed to have the power to hire or fire three members of staff as a minimum requirement.

The salaried staff at Wal-Mart did not have these powers, neither did they have any staff supervision roles.

Last 10 posts by Amelia

• Colorado Reduces Minimum Wage in 2010 - November 20th, 2009
• New Law Expands FMLA and NDAA for Military Families - October 30th, 2009
• California Approves Exempt Salary Reduction - October 16th, 2009
• 3 New Illinois Laws - October 9th, 2009
• New Definition of Disability - September 25th, 2009
• E-Verify Regulations - September 18th, 2009
• New USERRA Regulations - September 2nd, 2009
• E-Verify News - August 26th, 2009
• New Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Law - August 19th, 2009
• Louisiana Minimum Wage - August 3rd, 2009