My dad has been pulling ten to twenty hours of overtime each pay cycle. I was told he gets paid by shift, but from what I understand, he's not a contract employee. Is it legal for him to not be paid overtime?

First of all, he is either an employee or an independent contractor; there is no such thing, legally, as a "contract employee", although there can be employees with contracts, either individual or union. So, we'll assume employee status to start with.

Are you saying he is paid XX dollars for each shift he works, no matter how few or many hours in the shift?

What exactly does he do and what type of industry is this?

He's an employee--he has taxes taken out of his paycheck, and gets a W2, verus a 1099. He gets paid X amount per hour, no matter how many hours worked per shift, or per week, even when it's well above forty.

As for what he does, he's a service attendant at a gas station/convenience store.

Just to verify, are you saying he gets X amount of pay for every hour worked but he doesn't get overtime pay when working over 40 hrs. per week?

That's correct, Betty.

While there are many possible exceptions to the overtime rules, none of them I can think of would apply here. More over, I can think of an actual court case that determined that gas stations per say engage in Interstate Commerce, so even the old "the employer is too small for the FICA act to apply" would be a non-starter. Of course, that argument almost never works in court these days anyhow, but having prior court decisions on point against the employer is starting out with several strikes.

I would say that overtime for hours worked past 40 is certainly due, as is minimum wage for all hours worked under federal laws. I do not know MI law, but MI cannot make the federal rules go away.

Your dad can put in a wage claim with the Mi. DOL.