Different overtime standards for office and plant employees

Ruskanen

Is it legal to pay plant employees, who work 10 hour shifts, overtime for anything after 40 hours in one week, and office employees, who work 8 hour shifts, overtime for anything after 8 hours in one day? We have some hourly office employees that are upset because they worked longer than 8 hours for 3 days last week, but because of the 4th of July holiday, they will not get paid overtime. They only get paid overtime for actual hours worked. Can you pay the two groups differently because their schedules are different?

LindaS

Yes you can have different standards as long as they aren't based on things such as sex, religion, race, etc.. Many companies, mine included, have different standards for when OT pay starts especially with a CBA (like mine). As long as you administer the policies consistently you shouldn't have a problem.

Down_the_Middle

Certainly you can have different O/T provisions; especially if you have a bargaining agreement in place. In the absence of such a CBA, I think different O/T provisions lead to finger pointing and polarization among employees. I'd have to be comfortable with a legitimate business reason b/4 adopting such a practice. It may be that no one gave it much thought before.........

Rockie

I don't think there is any legal restriction on this, but be prepared that it will more than likely complicate your life. What happens when the plant employee works his/her 10 hour shift and for some reason only gets 30 hours in a given week? Are they also going to be eligible to get the daily overtime even though they didn't meet the weekly overtime requirement? You can bet they will expect this if it happens.