Just When You Thought You Were Beginning to Understand...

By John Lowe

You heard it here first: the Department of Labor has completed its rewrite of the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations for the executive, administrative and professional exemptions, and will publish the proposed changes in the March 31, 2003 Federal Register.

The most major of the proposed changes are said to:

1. raise the minimum weekly salary these exempt workers must earn from $156 to $425;
2. change the definitions of "duties" that are considered non-exempt;
3. change the time an administrative employee can devote to certain activities and still be considered exempt; and,
4. allow deductions from exempt employees' salaries for full day absences taken for disciplinary reasons.

The Department of Labor's effort to update the FLSA "white collar" exemption regulations dates back to the Carter administration, an effort the head of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division calls "long and tortured." Stated another way, despite the fact that 19 million to 26 million Americans are covered by the regulations, the DOL has been working — unsuccessfully — to change them since you were wearing bell bottoms and playing with pet rocks.

Stay tuned for more updates as these provisions move through the regulatory process.