Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia

Re: hours worked

You asked how many hours you can be required to work in a week when you are paid on an exempt basis.

This would be governed by state law and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Generally the FLSA breaks employees down into two classes: exempt (salary) and non-exempt (hourly). You state you are exempt and this means that you are exempt from the laws requiring overtime pay and a few other protections that go along with hourly workers. Ultimately, you are charged with a completing a job and can be expected to take as many hours or as few to complete the job as is necessary. In real life this means that you don't get over-time pay even though you work more than 40 hours in a week.

Ultimately the number of hours that you can be worked in a week is governed by one person, you. An employer must make certain that you have one free day (going from memory here) in every 12 day period. Beyond that an employer can ask you to work as often as you are willing to work. The trade-off is that you are able to refuse. This usually results in unemployment. It's called at-will employment.

If your job requires hourly duties and otherwise does not qualify as exempt maybe you should not be classified as an exempt employee. Take a look at the FLSA and see if your job should instead be classified as non-exempt. There have been known companies that classify employees as exempt when they are actually non-exempt.

If your employer has purposefully misclassified you then you could have a significant claim against the employer. If instead you are found to be mistakenly classified as an exempt employee then you would still be eligible for retro-active non-exempt pay where you could demonstrate that you worked in excess of 40 hours.

Regards,

Roger Traversa

email: [email protected]