I woke up this morning to three emails from people asking essentially the same question: Can my manager stop paying me overtime by declaring that I’m a salaried employee? While giving an entirely correct answer would involve looking carefully at the job description, the answer is almost always no.
Human resources manager and employee-relations expert Rebecca Goldbach says, “Everyone is born non-exempt.” Non-exempt means that you are subject to the rules in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This means that if you work more than 40 hours in a workweek, you are eligible for overtime. (The federal government, of course, has exempted itself from portions of this law, but business owners must follow it. And, California, of course, has made it more complicated and says you are eligible for overtime if you work more than 8 hours in a single day.)