labor lawAdivision of labor law center

Wal-Mart, Inc., hired workers and called them managers. It then worked those “managers” more than 40 hours a week but did not pay them overtime. Now the retail behemoth must pay $33 million in back wages and interest to 87,000 workers.

This is the gist of a settlement between the U.S. Labor Department and Wal-Mart recently. The crux of the matter was the underpayment of a group of salaried manager and programmer trainees and salaries interns for long hours of work.

Wal-Mart’s action was in violation of the U.S. and Massachusetts minimum wage laws. And its problems are not necessarily over as a result of the settlement. Nothing in the agreement says Wal-Mart is exempt from private litigation or any employee’s right to file complaints with the Department of Labor. The settlement applies only to the specific violations named.

The particular settlement said that the workers were what is described as “non-exempt salaried” employees. In short, they did not fall into the category of those salaried employees who are exempt from the regulation.

To be an exempt employee, and as a result subject to work weeks longer than 40 hours but without overtime pay, you must fall under certain guidelines. One is that you must make more than $455 a week, or $23,600 annually. Second, you must be in a decision-making or supervisory role in your division, department or store. More specifically, that applies in most cases to somebody who has the authority to hire and fire more than three people.

The employees in the Wal-Mart case were in some cases getting less than the ceiling wage, so they were covered by the regulation.

Other businesses have tried to skirt the law by calling workers managers. Howard Johnson’s was found guilty of hiring “assistant managers” for restaurants. These “assistant managers” sometimes worked 80 hours plus, doing labor like dishwashing, waiting on tables, and busing.

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