The purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is to give employers specific tests to determine whether a job is nonexempt or exempt from its provisions. An employee salaried under an FLSA exemption is paid a full salary for the work week, regardless of the actual number of hours worked during the week. The FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for employees employed as bona fide executive, administrative, professional, outside sales (not covered in this article) and certain computer employees.
In April 2004, the Department of Labor (DOL) published the final changes to the white-collar overtime exemption rules under the FLSA, entitled the "Fair Pay Initiative." Currently the new regulations are scheduled to take effect for all employers on August 23, 2004, barring any attempts by the U. S. Senate to overturn and again revise the overtime regulations. Most professionals agree that the current regulations will indeed move forward due to the fact that Senate ...