You're Now a "Manager" So Forget About Overtime is the headline of a New York Times report on the very common practice where companies try to evade state and federal overtime laws by mislabeling employees as a "manager."
Here's some of the key points:
many companies provide salaries just above the federal cutoff (meaning the minimum salary cutoff which is about $35,500) to frontline workers and mislabel them as managers to deny them overtime
from 2010 to 2018, manager titles in a large database of job postings were nearly five times as common among workers who were at the federal salary cutoff for mandatory overtime or just above it as they were among workers just below the cutoff (doesn't that sound like gaming the system)
the practice of mislabeling workers as managers to deny them overtime, which often relies on dubious-sounding titles like “lead reservationist” and “food cart manager,” cost the workers about $4 billion per year, or more than $3,000 per mislabeled employee
the number of managers in the labor force increased more than 25 percent from 2010 to 2019, while the overall number of workers grew roughly half that percentage
From 2019 to 2021, the work force shrank by millions while the number of managers did not budge
We've done a large number of postings on this practice of avoiding paying overtime; it is often referred to as "misclassification" meaning misclassifying an employee as exempt from overtime pay requirements based on a job title of "manager" or something similar:
Is a shift supervisor entitled to overtime?
Is a First Assistant Manager Exempt from Overtime?
Are store managers exempt from overtime in Kentucky?
Does being paid a salary mean that I don't have to be paid overtime?
Are assistant store managers exempt from overtime?
Lexington, Kentucky overtime lawyer Robert Abell represents individuals and employees recover the overtime pay they have earned; contact him at 859-254-7076
