The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, record-keeping requirements, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers in both the private sector (unless exempted, e.g., certain religious workers) and public employment. There are a number of employer requirements. Two are described below. Overtime pay: FLSA requires that employers pay employees overtime pay at a minimum rate of one and a half times the basic rate (‘time and a half’) beyond 40 hours of work during the regular workweek. (Certain exceptions apply. For example, the overtime rule may not be applicable to police officers and firefighters during certain emergency situations.) A number of states have enacted their own overtime laws. In the event that an employee is subject to both federal and state overtime law, the employee is entitled to overtime pay according to the schedule that provides the higher pay.
Conceivably this could lead to situations in which one group of employees might be entitled to overtime pay, while another group—under the same general circumstances—might not. For example, during an emergency, firefighters might be required to remain on duty past the 40-hour minimum without receiving higher pay for the additional hours. But the ‘civilian’ dispatchers required to remain on duty during that same period would be eligible for the higher pay rate. Federal contractors: Contractors providing services to the Federal government, with a contract value in excess of $10,000, are subject to FLSA, even if not otherwise covered. Thus, for example, a contractor doing less than $500,000 business overall per year and with only one employee (and therefore not subject to FLSA) would nonetheless be covered by FLSA for employee outlays for services to complete a Federal contract in excess of $10,000. However, he would not be comparably covered if the value of the contract were less than $10,000.