Kahn Gauthier Swick is investigating legal actions on behalf of employees who have not been paid the full amounts due them under state and federal labor laws. A federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), sets minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for many employees. State laws also provide protection to employees: They can provide greater (but not lesser) protection for workers covered by the FLSA, and they can specify requirements for workers not covered by the FLSA.

Employees' rights under the labor laws can be violated in a number of ways: The employer can fail to pay employees for all hours worked, such as by requiring them to work "off the clock," or the employer can fail to pay employees the overtime pay rate for overtime hours worked. In either case, the employee will have a legal claim against the employer under the labor laws.

The FLSA covers (1) employees of all businesses with $500,000 in annual dollar volume of business, and (2) employees of the following regardless of their business dollar volume: hospitals; institutions primarily engaged in the care of the sick, aged, mentally ill or disabled who reside on the premises; schools for children who are mentally or physically disabled or gifted; preschools, elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education; and federal, state and local government agencies.

Workers Exempt from Minimum Wage and Overtime Payment Provisions

Under both federal and state laws, some employees are "exempt" from minimum wage or overtime pay requirements, or both, even though their employers are covered by the law. Exempt employees are not covered by these requirements and therefore will not have a legal claim against the employer for violation of the provisions. The main categories of exempt workers under the federal law are executive, administrative and professional employees.

The following groups of employees are also exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements of the FLSA: outside sales employees, certain skilled computer professionals, employees of certain seasonal amusement or recreational establishments, employees of certain small newspapers and switchboard operators of small telephone companies, seamen employed on foreign vessels, employees engaged in fishing operations, employees engaged in newspaper delivery, farm workers employed on small farms (i.e., those that used less than 500 "man-days" of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year), and casual babysitters and persons employed as companions to the elderly or infirm.

Certain other classes of employees are exempt from only the overtime pay requirements of the FLSA: certain commissioned employees of retail or service establishments; auto, truck, trailer, farm implement, boat or aircraft salespersons employed by non-manufacturing establishments primarily engaged in selling these items to ultimate purchasers; auto, truck, or farm implement parts-clerks and mechanics employed by non-manufacturing establishments primarily engaged in selling these items to ultimate purchasers; railroad and air carrier employees, taxi drivers, certain employees of motor carriers, seamen on American vessels, and local delivery employees paid on approved trip rate plans; announcers, news editors and chief engineers of certain non-metropolitan broadcasting stations; domestic service workers who reside in their employers' residences; employees of motion picture theaters; and farmworkers. A few classes of employees are partially exempt from the overtime pay requirements.

Effect of State Labor Laws

State labor laws can be more beneficial to employees than the FLSA in a number of ways: They can provide for a higher minimum wage; they can define the class of workers exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay requirements more narrowly than does FLSA, so that more workers have these protections; they can require payment of overtime pay on a daily as well as a weekly basis (i.e., for working more than eight hours a day as well as for working more than 40 hours per week); and they can specify that certain overtime must be paid at double-time rather than the time-and-a-half requirement of federal law.

Presently a dozen jurisdictions have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum of $5.15 an hour:

Alaska $7.15
California $6.75
Connecticut $6.90 ($7.10 on 1/1/2004)
Delaware $6.15
District of Columbia $6.15
Hawaii $6.25
Maine $6.25
Massachusetts $6.75
Oregon $6.90
Rhode Island $6.15
Vermont $6.25
Washington $7.01