Paul Tassin  |  August 26, 2015

Category: Labor & Employment

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Aerobics Pilates personal trainer helping women group in a gym classA Pilates instructor from Queens is suing his former studio for allegedly forcing him to work extreme amounts of overtime with no overtime pay.

Marcos L. says that while he taught at Pilates Bodies New York, he was expected to work as many as fifteen hours per day, seven days per week. He was not allowed to take breaks in between teaching classes, he says. He claims he was also not allowed to take time off or to get help from other employees. His pay, at $1,000 per week for working as many as 105 hours, barely allowed him to make ends meet, he states.

Marcos is now suing for unpaid overtime and other damages. His wage and hour lawsuit follows a separate lawsuit by the owner of the studio who sued him for breach of contract after he quit in December 2014. The owner says Marcos hamstrung her business by quitting and by badmouthing the studio online.

Marcos’s wage and hour lawsuit is pending in a federal court in Brooklyn.

The Fair Labor Standards Act

Marcos will likely raise claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. This law sets minimum standards for wage and hour practices to be followed throughout the United States for certain types of employment.

Under the FLSA overtime requirement, certain employees are entitled to be paid at 1.5 the regular hourly rate for any hours over 40 worked in a single week. There is no federal limit on how many hours a person can be expected to work in a single week; however, as long as they are properly paid for all hours worked.

Some employees are exempt from overtime protection. Whether a particular employee is correctly categorized as working an “exempt job” or a “non-exempt job” can itself give rise to a wage and hour lawsuit if it results in an employee being underpaid. It’s possible that as part of his claim for overtime, Marcos may have to establish that he was a non-exempt employee rather than a different type of worker, such as a business partner, that might be exempt from overtime protection.

States can and do pass their own employment laws that give workers extra protection over and above the protections under the FLSA. Under New York employment laws, workers are entitled to a minimum wage of $8.75 per hour. They may be able to prove a violation of this requirement if their employer requires them to work so much extra time that their effective wage falls below the state minimum wage. That doesn’t appear to be an option for Marcos, though, since his weekly salary divided by the number of hours he was expected to work each week is still above the state minimum wage. The New York Department of Labor offers a claim process to help workers collect wages that are rightfully theirs despite unlawful underpayments.

Marcos may also be able to assert state requirements for breaks and rest days. Workers in certain jobs in New York are guaranteed one consecutive 24-period of rest per week. Certain employees are also generally entitled to meal periods of 30 minutes, or in some circumstances no less than 20 minutes.

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