Q. Our pay cycle and workweek differ, and the disparity sometimes causes confusion. We are paid every two weeks. Sometimes the pay cycle starts on a Tuesday and ends on a Friday of the following week. Our workweek typically runs Tuesday through Monday. How do you determine overtime in a system like this?
A. If you are eligible for overtime, then you qualify for the premium pay when you work more than 40 hours in a workweek. And the key is “workweek.”
The U.S. Labor Department, for purposes of record-keeping and overtime and other matters, simply defines a workweek as a period of seven consecutive days. Beyond that, a firm can determine when the period ends and begins. The company can’t, however, legally shift the workweek to avoid paying overtime.
If your workweek runs Tuesday through Monday, then you would have to work more than 40 hours in that period to qualify for the overtime pay mandated by law. If you work the Monday before that week begins or the Tuesday after the workweek, those hours fall into a different 40-hour work period and the march toward overtime starts all over again.
Keeping track of that becomes more confusing when your pay period runs on a different cycle.
But no matter the cycle, the company has to establish a workweek so that it can document what you are owed.
For more information call your state Labor Department.
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Carrie Mason-Draffen is a columnist for Newsday, a Tribune Co. newspaper. E-mail her at yourmoney@tribune.com.
