State of Arizona Overtime Labor Law Regulations

August 7th, 2006 Posted by Mark

It must be something with states that start with the letter “A.” As we saw with Alabama, Arizona also does not have its own overtime law. Basically, Arizona then defers, or follows, the federal law, called the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is overseen by the Federal Wage and Hour Division.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA for short, basically is the national law that tells employers what is the minimum amount they can pay a worker, what they have to pay a worker for overtime, how they can hire and work with minors, and how they should keep their books.

The FLSA is the law of the land, unless a state comes up with its own set of rules on the above topics, and then the state’s rules come first for local small businesses that do not conduct interstate business. In the case of Arizona, obviously, the federal rules matter first and foremost to us because the state has no rules at all.

That being said, let’s have a quick refresher on what the FLSA says about overtime. The main gist of it is that employers must pay employees at least one and a half times they normal rate of pay for any time spent working over 40 hours a week.

Generally, a whole other set of rules come into play with FLSA on exactly who is and who is not part of the law. Some employees, in other words, are exempt from this overtime rule. Many salaried workers, for instance, such as many white-collar professionals, do not merit overtime pay for work done over 40 hours.

The federal law also sets up overtime exemptions for minors too. This is a different type of exemption though. Instead of not being able to get paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week, minors can’t get overtime because they are not allowed to work that much. Children under the age of 16, for instance, have their work hours restricted by the FLSA.

As with all the federal labor laws the full details of teh Arizona labor laws can be found on the Arizona Complete Labor Law poster currently reflecting the most up to date information.

16 Comments >> Posted in Arizona,Employment Laws,Overtime,Wage and Hour