Let’s say you have some employees who work long, 12-hour shifts and others who work traditional eight-hour shifts.
The 12-hour employees work four shifts one week (48 hours), then three shifts the second week (36 hours) and another three shifts the third week (36 hours). This 4-3-3 schedule would be repeated every three weeks, resulting in a total of 120 hours worked during every three-week period — the exact same total hours as if the eight-hour employees who worked 15 Monday-to-Friday shifts during the same span of time.
But the 12-hour employees get paid more because they earn overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act for any hours worked over 40 in a given workweek. The eight-hour employees feel this isn’t fair, and employee morale is suffering.
Well, now there’s a solution.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a 9th Circuit ruling allowing employers to lower the hourly pay of the employees who work long shifts so that their total weekly pay including overtime premiums equals what they would have earned by working shorter shifts. In this example, you’d give the 12-hour employees $19.36 an hour, and the eight-hour employees $20 an hour. Over three weeks, they’d all earn the same total of $2,400.
The 9th Circuit’s ruling stands only for employers operating in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon or Washington. You can probably adopt a similar plan if you operate in other states, since the U.S. Department of Labor has supported them; but consult an attorney first.