Overtime: Not All States are Created Equally

Sanford, NCMost questions and complaints about employment have to do with overtime and failure to pay overtime is one of the leading causes of claims against employers. After all, time means money, especially when it comes to extra hours that countless programmers are "asked" to do. But many programmers find themselves working overtime without the money.

Basically, one federal law regulates time -- The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 -- but not all states have the same regulations and some states extend beyond federal law. Not only do you have to figure out if you exempt or not, you also have to determine if you are exempt (or not) from state regulations. And that can be confusing. It can also be unfair and unjust if you happen to live in North Carolina, for example.

"Unfortunately when it comes to programmers, my state doesn't have the same overtime laws that California has," says Alvin Reed. He worked as a programmer at Worldcom from October, 1999 through January of 2005. "For the first six months I I was paid by the hour; I worked 40 hours at the office and another 20 hours at home just about every week," says Reed. But he was only paid the 40 hours at the office. Reed is now suing the company for these six months of overtime. But then he was classified as a salaried employee and that is when it gets tricky.

"We were working on a project and I understood that, by solving this difficult problem and working additional hours, I would receive a significant increase in salary or get extra time off," Reed says. "I received neither and on the congratulatory party for saving the company $500,000 per year, the two people who did all the work (me and my co-worker)received no recognition. We didn't get paid nor did we even get recognition for all the hard work; this was a real blow--not just financially but psychologically."

The the U.S. Department of Labor states The Fair Labor Standards Act on its website:

Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $455 per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.

However, the Federal Government Overtime Rules Under Fair Labor Standards Act --August 2004 -- does not apply in all states. Unfortunately for Alvin Reed, the rules in North Carolina do not work in his favor. Reed is entitled to overtime when he was paid an hourly wage but he may have no recourse for the 60-hour weeks worked as a salaried employee -- verbal agreements notwithstanding.

"In the early years at this company, I worked on a project where I had to go through tens of thousands of tickets looking for particular anomalies and we had to automate the process of looking at these tickets," says Reed. "There were a number of people who worked on the same project and failed because it was so difficult. They didn't put in those hours but I put in the extra time and made it work.

"We increased automation from 13 to 30 percent so my supervisors were very pleased with my performance. I expected to be compensated for my extra efforts and it was verbally understood that I would receive payment. I was paid a salary but I was also supposed to have been given time off or a large bonus.

"After that, I worked on a second project and continued to work 20 hours per week overtime. I thought the entire department would get fired if we didn't complete the project. I worked 60 hours per week to reduce costs on these projects that would save Worldcom $3 million. I finally left, without getting compensated.

"Somewhere along the line I was told that, in North Carolina, you can work 150 hours per week and if you are on salary, you may not get a dime. It isn't like California's overtime laws.

This company was more interested in profits than looking after their employees. I am in the process of suing them...in part because of all the hard work I did and not getting anything in return."