The pay rate a worker earns give them an amount worth the time taken out of their life outside of work. During the 1920s and 1930s, union workers asked for a raise in the pay employers give out for hours that take away from any opportunity to spend time with family, learn, rest, and enjoy life.

The extra pay an employer gives is the price of getting for the business enterprise the hours that the worker can spend making gains in their own enterprise, or in their life.

Common Hours

Forty hours was set as the limit manufacturing workers would work at the employer's direction without any additional hour counting for more during the early 1900s industrial period business managers often put productivity above the work hour choices of labor. Today, there is no limit on the number of hours a worker aged 16 or older can work, but forty hours is still the standard in America. Any workweek hours off the standard mark get singled out for an extraordinary pay rate fit for the additional work.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 protects most workers in America against any attempt by an employer to take advantage of a worker willing to put in extra hours but ask for nothing in return. But, some workers do not get the law's protection.

Businesses that make less than $500,000 gross can choose to pay, or not pay, overtime.

Workers in certain occupations that work for employers that ask for hours more than the standard 40 hours can count on their employer to give them a due amount. The employer can approve a pay rate for hours they know demand more from a worker than their regular responsibility.

Executives have customarily agreed to their own hours with the business owners and management, or set their own hours. Professionals and administrative workers negotiate their hours with the management and the executive officers. College professors and teachers in secondary and elementary schools settle their hours with the officers and peers at the education institution.

Seasonal agricultural workers offer their farm labor during hours each farmer decides best for farming. Fishermen and fisherwomen, and fishing workers, settle on a hours fit for the fishing times in the fishing industry.

Americans employed in helping other Americans enjoy amusement or recreation have taken the opportunity to work hours not written in the national law. They work the hours they are willing to agree to or write in a contract.

Writers and reporters, and the staff, that work at a newspaper published daily, semi-weekly, or weekly, with a circulation that is largely in the county at less than 4,000 work the hours needed to sell news stories as they happen in a number of hours equal to their part of the newspaper production..

Babysitters help raise children during the hours the parents need help.

Time and A Half

The Fair Labor Standards Act tells employer regular pay for hours that become useless for the goals a worker typically spends time on during those hours is wrong. Extra pay is given for the extra work. An employer must pay a worker one and a half times their regular rate, or, if they choose, more. Double time for more than ten hours overtime is a well known practice.

Overtime pay is given for the hours above 40 hours in a workweek the employer asks from the worker or lets the worker work. An employer calculates the rate by multiplying the regular rate by 1 1/2.

The Workweek

Employers can agree with employees on a workweek they choose. The total hours open for work times are 168 during 7 consecutive 24 hours periods. The workweek can begin on any day and at any time.

Time spent changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of the workday are not on the clock.

Hours from two more workweeks can not be added together.

Regular Pay

The regular pay is the total payments given for regular productive work done by the worker. The regular pay rate is calculated by dividing the total pay for a workweek by the total hours worked. Or, the employer can use the regular rate paid during the time the worker worked overtime hours.

The regular costs of goods given to a worker or facilities, such as housing, gets added in to the regular pay. An employer can use the fair value of the goods instead.

When a worker works at two work times with different pay rates, the regular rate is a weighted average of the two or more rates. The formula: regular rate = (hours at rate 1/total hours)(rate 1) + (hours at rate 2/total hours)(rate 2). For example, during one workweek, a driver works 25 hours at a regular delivery rate of $12/hr and 15 hours at a rush delivery rate of $15/hr. The regular rate is $12.63 an hour.

The law rules out a list of payment types. Payments for Sunday, Saturday, holidays and regular rest days do not not count. All pay for time off, including holidays, vacations and sick days, does not get counted in the pay for productive hours. Travel expenses are also not in the total regular hours.

The regular rate can not be less than the minimum wage.

Piece rate pay is a type of regular rate pay.

Payday

The overtime payday is the same as the regular payday.

No Other Way to Pay for Extra Work.

An employer can not count up the payments they give in a week in addition to the regular pay and count that total against the pay for overtime hours. They can not use the payments for special days, time off work and travel instead of an overtime payment.

An employer that hires a worker to work more than 40 hours at regular pay does have to pay an additional 1/2 for each hour above 40 hours.

Lump sum payments do not count. Overtime pay is paid at a 1 1/2 times rate for the hours above the 40 standard hours.

The law does not allow employers and employees to agree to not use the overtime pay and let the employer out of the responsibility. These illegal agreements are called a waiver.

An employer and employee may not agree that only 8 hours a day or 40 hrs in a week count as working time.

The Reward for An Extra Commitment

Helpful added work is rewarded. Productivity earns a higher pay rate during unpractical times for work.

Sources:

The Fair Labor Standards Act

(1938).

U. S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet No. 23:Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA (July 2008).