Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal

"Updating" The "White-Collar" Employee Exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act

By
L. Camille Hébert

Abstract

This article discusses the results of research conducted on behalf of the United States Department of Labor of cases interpreting the exemptions from overtime for executive, administrative, and professional employees and the extent to which those results are consistent with the new proposed regulations interpreting that exemption. That research, commissioned by the Department of Labor under the Clinton Administration, studied the way that the application of the exemptions has changed over the last 25 years. The article suggests that the results of that research indicate a need to modify the salary level test for the exemption, a need to reactivate some of the exemption requirements, and a need to clarify other requirements of the exemptions in order to restore the balance between employee and employer interests implicated by the exemptions. The article then reviews the new proposed regulations in light of this research and concludes that the new regulations do not adequately address the concerns of both employees and employers. Instead of merely "updating" the exemptions, the proposed regulations instead represent a further shift in favor of employer interests at the expense of employees.