SOME FACTS ABOUT THE FAIR LABOR AND STANDARDS ACT (FLSA)

The FLSA, enacted in 1938, is a federal law which incorporated important rights for employees and responsibilities for employers. The FLSA instituted a national minimum wage for employees, and guaranteed that employees who worked overtime time and a half in pay for certain jobs. It also makes child labor illegal.

Ordinary Hours

Under the FLSA, employees who are not exempted under the law must be paid for all of the time they work. That's true regardless of whether the employee is hourly or salaried. Time you spend working off the clock, or away from your normal workplace, is still working time for which you should be compensated.

Overtime Hours

Employees who can earn overtime are called non-exempt employees. Under the law, non-exempt employees must be paid "time and a half" (1.5 times their normal wage) for any hours above the standard 40 hours a week.

Tipped Employees

Millions of workers in the US rely on tips for most of their income, and there are well over two million businesses that rely on tipped employees. Workers at restaurants, hotels and other businesses where tipping is common are especially vulnerable to illegal behavior by employers.

Some employers break the law by denying overtime, misclassifying hourly or salaried workers as exempt, pressuring or outright ordering employees to work off the clock, allowing managers to skim from tipped employees' tip pools, altering time cards and much more. If your employer is doing any of these things, you may have a case under FLSA. And if your employer is doing this to all other workers there may have a basis to file a class action lawsuit to recoup monies earned by you and all other workers at your work site.