Officials in Erie County (Penn.) say they will pay $54,000 in back pay to 54 current and former comm center employees in the wake of a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigation into overtime pay related to a 3×12 shift configuration. The pay ranges from just $48.36 owed to one employee, up to $2,167.33 owed to another. According to county officials, they obtained permission from the dispatchers’ union in Feb. 2009 to change comm center shifts from the standard 5×8 configuration to 3×12. The county-union agreement was that dispatchers would be paid straight time for all hours under the 3×12 plan. Dispatchers would not receive federally-required time-and-one-half overtime pay for time they would routinely work over 40 hours each week under the 3×12 shift plan. Last November the DOL received a complaint and began an investigation that confirmed the shift configuration, and that time worked beyond 40 hours had not been paid at the federally-required time-and-one-half rate. The DOL said that the dispatchers’ union may not waive the dispatchers’ right to overtime pay. Union officials said their negotiators must have been unaware of the overtime pay requirement, while county officials said were unaware of the shift change. Read more about the labor law issue here. [Editor: In general, a 3×12 shift configuration creates some overtime each week, requiring overtime pay. There are several types of 3×12 shifts, but you can see several examples here. View the DOL overtime regulations here, and download (pdf) a DOL opinion on overtime here.]
3 comments… add one
I thought the FSLA and OT didn’t matter if there was a CBA…
That’s the point that the DOJ was making in this case—no one can bargain away or waive their right to overtime pay at time and one-half as set out in federal law. Unlike your ability to waive some constitutional provisions during criminal proceedings (right to remain silent, to have a jury trial, etc)., the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) specifically disallows waivers for overtime pay. Several court decisions have affirmed the overtime law, ruling that individual waivers would jeopardize the original reason for the law, which was to prevent employer exploitation of certain workers by working them long hours for little pay. Download (pdf) an explanation here.
Case law on this is not new…everybody knows you can’t waive your FLSA rights.
Somebody on the negotiations team was caught sleeping. Ooops.
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