Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog
Compliance with the federal overtime compensation and the minimum wage standards can be affected by many things… even the weather. These wide and varied influences on businesses’ compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (and accompanying regulations) serve as a reminder that ensuring compliance is an extensive and multifaceted project. Whether you are an employer seeking to ensure your pay practices are compliant or a worker denied proper compensation, an experienced Atlanta wage and hour lawyer can advise you about your rights and obligations.
Hurricane Debby struck Florida earlier this month as a Category 1 storm but quickly entered Georgia packing tropical storm-force winds and massive volumes of rain. The storm forced schools, government offices, and businesses to close across South Georgia, including Savannah and Brunswick.
In North Georgia, our businesses are more likely to close temporarily because of snow and ice rather than tropical weather, but closures do happen. Employers may reasonably wonder what their pay obligations are under the FLSA when workers are not at work because of weather-related closures.
Non-Exempt Employees
What the law requires depends on the employee’s classification. An employer whose office was closed due to weather (or the employer of non-exempt workers who missed work because of weather conditions) has no legal obligation to pay those non-exempt workers for the hours they missed due to the closure.
The crux of this rule is that non-exempt workers get paid only for the hours they actually worked. If a non-exempt worker put in time before their employer’s office closed or a non-exempt employee worked remotely during a “snow day,” the law says the employer must pay them for those hours. During office closures, employers with remote workers should either instruct those team members to take the day off or else those employers should plan to pay those workers for those days.
Exempt Employees
The rules for exempt employees are different. For these workers, the employer’s obligations vary based on the duration of the closure. For closures that wipe out an entire week (or more) of work, the law says the employer is free not to pay its exempt employees for that week. For closures spanning less than one week, the law demands that employers pay exempt employees their full salaries just as if the closures did not happen.
Employers do have options regarding exempt employees and closures lasting less than one week. One avenue is requiring those workers to use their paid time off (PTO) to cover the days the office was not open. Because federal law does not mandate that employers offer PTO, federal law also imposes no restrictions on employers instituting this kind of PTO rule. Employers who utilize this practice should ensure that the rules are carefully stated in their PTO policies and should ensure they do not reduce the pay of exempt employees whose PTO balances were too low to cover the weather-related closure.
If you have questions about weather-related work absences and your business’ pay practices related to that scenario, the saying about an “ounce of prevention” besting a “pound of cure” rings true. The time to address the issue and consult counsel is before you have a problem. The knowledgeable Atlanta wage and hour attorneys at the law firm of Parks, Chesin & Walbert have assisted a wide range of business clients in ensuring FLSA compliance and avoiding liability issues, providing customized solutions based on each business client’s specific needs. We also assist and represent workers whose employers have wrongfully failed to pay them what the law says they are owed. Contact us today us at 404-873-8048 or through this website to schedule a consultation to learn how we can help you.