Hourly Exempt?

[usatuna]

I work in Virginia as a full-time employee for a small business, under 8 people. Our boss pays us an hourly rate (an "annual salary" divided by 2080 hours) but treats us as exempt.

In other words, my pay fluctuates according to the number of workdays (but no more than 40 a week) in the period from the first of the month through the 15th and from the 16th through the end of the month...Paychecks are either for 72, 80, 88, or 96 hours.

I recruit, hire, train, and supervise several "independent contractors" who are not considered employees.

Am I really exempt from overtime pay?

[Sue]

I work in Virginia as a full-time employee for a small business, under 8 people. Our boss pays us an hourly rate (an "annual salary" divided by 2080 hours) but treats us as exempt.

In other words, my pay fluctuates according to the number of workdays (but no more than 40 a week) in the period from the first of the month through the 15th and from the 16th through the end of the month...Paychecks are either for 72, 80, 88, or 96 hours.

I recruit, hire, train, and supervise several "independent contractors" who are not considered employees.

Am I really exempt from overtime pay?

If you are not exempt AND your company meets the following guidelines to be covered by the FSLA then you are entitled to overtime:
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes standards for minimum wages, overtime pay, record-keeping and child labor. These standards affect more than 100 million workers, both full-time and part-time, in the private and public sectors.

The Act applies to enterprises with employees who engage in interstate commerce, produce goods for interstate commerce, or handle, sell or work on goods or materials that have been moved in or produced for interstate commerce. For most firms, a test of not less than $500,000 in annual dollar volume of business applies (i.e., the Act does not cover enterprises with less than this amount of business).

However, the Act does cover the following regardless of their dollar volume of business: 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.

Employees of firms that do not meet the $500,000 annual dollar volume test may be covered in any workweek when they are individually engaged in interstate commerce, the production of goods for interstate commerce, or an activity that is closely related and directly essential to the production of such goods.
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/guide/minwage.htm