We Only Work When We Need the Money!

The roll out of the new Fair Labor Standards Act seems to have everyone confused. All that seems clear now is that no one really knows how many people will be impacted by the new overtime pay legislation that went into effect this week.

While it was originally intended to limit workers' lawsuits for working overtime with out pay, the new legislation puts at peril the overtime pay for entire classes of workers. Other groups of professionals who were once salaried, will now be compensated on an hourly basis, and will become eligible for overtime pay.

Living in the shadow of dot.com dreams has made salaried, forty-hour work weeks in the Bay Area seem almost as probable as your options actually being worth something. Bankers, lawyers, CEO�s, and hopeful dot.com�ers have long worn their long work hours as badges of honor. However the new law will force chefs, pharmacists, funeral directors, journalists and dental hygienists (to name a few) into the same type of labor agreements usually negotiated for professionals with much higher compensation packages. In addition to putting overtime pay at risk, the new regulations are also forcing businesses to reclass their employee's job descriptions in order to fit the new classification scheme.

The good news? California�s labor laws are already much more stringent and therefore supercede, Federal Labor laws. Meaning that most California workers will not see their pay agreement restructured. Whew!