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Chicago paramedics will begin receiving checks in the mail as the city sends out over $3.7 million in owed overtime pay and penalty payments. A federal judge found that the city failed to pay appropriate overtime and ordered Chicago officials to compensate more than 700 city paramedics.
The ruling stems from four separate unpaid overtime class action lawsuits filed between 2006 and 2012, claiming that the city failed to correctly calculate the often irregular hours worked by Chicago Fire Department Bureau of Emergency Medical Services paramedics.
According to court documents, the paramedics were on 24-hour shifts with days off between, and frequently logged 48 hours in a week. Federal overtime law states that for all hours worked over 40 per week, employees are to receive overtime pay at a rate of 1 1/2 times their salary.
Who Is Eligible For Overtime Pay?
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, if an employee works more than 40 hours in a given workweek, and is a nonexempt employee, then the employee is entitled to receive 1 1/2 times the regular rate of pay for every hour worked over the 40-hour mark.
Unlike nonexempt employees, exempt employees are ineligible for overtime. To be classified as an exempt employee, a worker must earn at least $455 a week, and must be paid on a “salary basis.” Being paid on a “salary basis” means an employee regularly receives a predetermined amount of compensation each pay period on a weekly, or less frequent, basis, and the employer does not make deductions from the predetermined amount.
The types of jobs that are typically exempt from overtime pay include outside salespeople, people who manage at least two other employees, administrative professionals who provide support to the larger organization, and those in “learned professions” including attorneys, architects, physicians and teachers.
How Do Employers Avoid Paying Overtime?
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some employers engage in unlawful practices to avoid paying overtime, such as:
- Calculating overtime by pay period instead of work week — for example, by averaging together the hours over several weeks.
- Misclassifying a position as an “exempt” salaried position when it doesn’t meet the criteria — for example, classifying an employee as a “manager” without the associated responsibilities.
- Asking an employee to work off-the-clock or clock out prior to finishing a specific task or job.
- Claiming that an employee didn’t get permission to work overtime and therefore, they don’t have to pay for additional hours.
While federal law sets the “floor” for minimum workplace protections, most states have their own statutes to regulate wages and hours beyond what the federal law provides. Because workers in some states can recover back wages for more years under state law than under federal law, a wage and hour lawsuit or class action lawsuit may be the best way to recover unpaid overtime.
If you think that your employer has misclassified you as a way to sidestep overtime pay, you’re constantly being asked to clock out and then finish tasks, or you have other concerns about unpaid overtime, it’s in your best interest to contact a qualified employment attorney as soon as possible.
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If you were forced to work off the clock or without overtime pay within the past 3 years, you have rights – and you don’t have to take on the company alone.
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