A few years back employees were not aware of their right to overtime and employers had no idea that overtime will actually become the devil of all the problems with a change of laws and regulations. The Department of Labor changed the policies related to overtime since now a person had to be at least making $445 a week to be ineligible for overtime. The policies were much in detail but the crux was that those employees who are not involved in tasks that require them to exercise discretion or provide independent judgment then they are eligible for an overtime which is one and a half times their hourly wages for every week worked.
This means anyone can be eligible for an overtime including a simple secretary as well. This change in law caught a number of companies by surprise and it also created awareness amongst employees. As a result 1.3 million employees became eligible for overtime all over. Lawsuits regarding overtime became class action suits and it was a sort of cottage industry created by the lawyers making good money. A number of organizations were not aware of the fact that they were not abiding by the law. The employees of such organization took advantage and the lawsuits enabled employees to get even a third of back wages in some cases.
But this law had wreaked havoc in the market since it had its repercussions. In case of a slow down of business the employers were left with no choice but to lay off workers and thus the much advantaged situation to the employees backfired at them. As a result of this law even the performing organizations that had satisfied employees receiving a certain amount in overtime got disturbed and this caused a drop in overall productivity of such organizations. Thus no one was happy about the whole situation (Gill).
The three points that support the main idea are the change in law by the Department Labor but without any consultation or preparation, the overtime lawsuits turning into class-action cases and the eventual repercussions (Gill).
The lists of important key terms from the article are overtime, class-action cases, company-wide investigations and flextime (Gill).
Works Cited
Gill, Dee. “Do Your Employees Qualify for Overtime?” Inc. Magazine. 2007. Mansueto Digital Network. Web.