Bank Owes More Than $1 Million In Overtime Pay

The First Republic Bank is paying over $1 million in overtime pay to 392 bank employees who were wrongly classified as exempt from overtime. The employees are a mix of bank administrative and professional employees whose job duties do not meet the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA”) exemptions from overtime. The bank employees in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon are entitled to one and one-half times their regular rate for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek making the bank pay out over $1 million in back wages.

The FLSA provides exemptions to overtime for some types of employees, i.e. outside sales, bona fide executive, administrative, and professional. However, employers regularly misclassified salaried employees as exempt when the employees do not actually met the exempt tests set out by the FLSA regulations. In order to determine whether a salaried employee is exempt from overtime is based on the employee’s job duties – not their job title.

The bank was also found to be in violation of the FLSA’s regulations that require employers to count bonus payments when calculating an employee’s overtime pay. In order to calculate overtime, an employer must calculate an employee’s regular rate – essentially, their hourly rate. However, the employer must include bonus payments, commissions, and incentive pay when determining this hourly rate which would raise the hourly overtime rate for non-exempt employees.

If you are a salaried employee and not paid overtime, you may be entitled to compensation. To learn your rights, contact our Atlanta overtime attorneys.