Fair Labor Standards Act: Court Ruling Makes Me Wonder…When/Do IT Folks Get Paid For Overtime?

Here’s something interesting along the compliance front…especially considering the very long hours I used to work for my employer years ago, and how long I know so many other IT folks work long hours trying to resolve problems. It also brings in a law I’m not very familiar with, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), but motivates me to learn more. Those of you in IT fields will be interested in this…


On August 28, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled (subscription required) that a software engineer working for a health care information firm was not entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), even though her after-hours work was specifically for identifying and resolving software errors and problems.
The court found that the engineer was an exempt computer professional under the FLSA because her employer expected her to solve software problems using her own analysis and judgment. The court said that whether the engineer wrote or modified computer “source code” in performing her duties was immaterial to the FLSA exemption.
Isn’t that interesting?
Hmm…

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