You clock in and work all day. Then you clock out, go home and answer calls, reply to text messages and emails on your phone all night. Should you be getting paid for overtime?
Just last month 3 individuals sued T-Mobile on the basis that they were required to respond to work messages after hours using their company-issued smartphones. On submitting the extra hours to management for compensation, they were told that they should expect to work the extra hours as part of T-Mobile’s “standard business practices.”
And that’s not the first case of technology-meets-overtime-laws, this past March a similar suit was brought against CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. in which a maintenance worker sought pay for receiving and responding to messages on his work cell phone after hours.
Will these claims hold water in court?
The governing federal law is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which requires hourly workers be paid one-and-half times their hourly wage for time worked beyond the standard forty-hour work week. Note, that only nonexempt employees are eligible for overtime time for employers covered by FLSA.
One question that courts will look at is whether the after-hours wireless communications constitute ‘work’ and are required or expected actions by the worker.
Related Resources:
- A Boom in ‘Overtime’ Lawsuits? Blame Technology (Wall Street Journal Blogs)
- Workers Want To Be Paid For Overtime Worked On Their BlackBerries (The Business Insider)
- Q&A: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FindLaw)
- Am I entitled to overtime pay? (FindLaw)
- Unpaid Overtime (provided by Bohrer Law Firm LLC)
- Wages & Benefits Overview (provided by Advantage Law Group)
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