The FLSA provides that the Postal Service must pay an employee covered by the overtime provisions of the Act (also known as an FLSA-nonexempt employee) at one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate for all hours of actual work in excess of 40 hours in any FLSA workweek. (See 444 for special provisions covering rural letter carriers.)
- Salaried Employee. An employee’s regular rate of pay is defined as the remuneration for employment received during an FLSA workweek, as specified in 443.212, divided by the hours that the employee actually worked.
- Hourly Rate Employee. The regular rate of an employee who is paid a fixed hourly wage is defined as the remuneration for employment received, as specified in 443.212.
Remuneration for employment includes:
- Total base straight-time pay, including COLA, for work performed.
- Total straight-time pay differential for higher level work performed.
- Total TCOLA paid for hours actually worked.
- Total night differential paid.
- Total premium paid for work performed on a Sunday.
- Total base straight-time pay, including COLA, for work performed on a holiday.
- Total base straight-time pay, including COLA, of a city letter carrier covering those hours not worked between the seventh and eighth hour of a regular scheduled day (7:01 rule). See 432.53.
- Total pay received for steward’s duty time, in accordance with the applicable collective-bargaining agreement.
- Total meeting and training time pay.
- Total pay for travel time.
- Total straight-time pay during scheduled tour and/or scheduled overtime spent waiting for or receiving medical attention (see 432.72).
- Total pay for time that computer programmer and systems analyst employees are required to carry an electronic pager.
Remuneration for employment excludes:
- Pay for time not worked, such as annual leave, sick leave, holiday leave, and guaranteed time not worked.
- The 50 percent overtime pay premium for time in pay status in excess of 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week.
- The 100 percent premium paid for penalty overtime.
- The 50 percent premium paid for work outside of an employee’s schedule or for emergency rescheduling.
- The 50 percent premium paid for work performed on Christmas day.
- TCOLA paid for leave hours and other time not worked.
- That portion of the higher level pay differential paid on leave hours and other time not worked.
- The 50 percent holiday scheduling premium paid under the provisions of the Holiday Settlement Agreement.
- That portion of the basic straight time pay of a part-time flexible employee paid in lieu of holiday leave pay.
The exclusions listed in 443.213a, f, g, and i are not creditable toward FLSA overtime compensation that is due to an employee.
When an employee in a single service week works in two or more positions having different rates of pay, the regular rate for the week equals the total base straight-time pay for actual work performed, plus all other remuneration for actual work performed, divided by the hours worked.
The FLSA defines actual work as all time which management suffers or permits an employee to work.
Actual work does not include any paid time off, but does include steward’s duty time, time off authorized for a city letter carrier under the 7:01 rule (see 432.53), and travel, meeting, and training time (see 438).
An employee must be paid for all work performed, regardless of whether the supervisor approved or disapproved the employee’s continuing to work. It is the duty of supervisors to exercise control over the working hours of their subordinates by making sure that employees complete their duties and clock out promptly at the completion of their tour if additional work is not desired or authorized. (See 432.7 for disallowed time.)
See 432.42, Service Week.
The FLSA workweek for all employees is a fixed and regular recurring period of 168 hours — 7 consecutive 24-hour periods. Once the beginning time of an employee’s workweek is established, it remains fixed regardless of the schedule of hours worked. The beginning of the FLSA workweek may be changed only if the change is intended to be permanent and is not designed to evade the payment of overtime.
When there is a permanent change in an employee’s workweek which causes some of the working time to fall within hours that are included in both the old and new workweek, the employee’s pay is calculated as follows:
- First, assume that the overlapping hours are to be counted as hours worked only in the old workweek and not in the new; compute straight-time and overtime compensation due for each of the 2 workweeks on this basis and total the two sums.
- Next, assume that the overlapping hours are to be counted as hours worked only within the new workweek and not in the old; complete the total computation accordingly.
- Then, pay the employee an amount not less than the greater of the amounts computed by methods a and b above.
The FLSA workweek for full-time employees is 168 consecutive hours established as follows:
- For an employee whose regular schedule includes Saturday as a service day, the FLSA workweek begins 8 hours prior to the beginning of the employee’s regular schedule for that service day.
Example 1: Full-time Employee A has a regular schedule starting time of 11:00 p.m. Friday night. By definition, the employee’s Postal Service workday is Saturday. Based on the FLSA workweek definition, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins at 3:00 p.m. Friday.
Example 2: Full-time Employee B has a regular schedule starting time of 1:00 a.m. Saturday. By definition, the employee’s Postal Service workday is Saturday. Based on the FLSA workweek definition contained in 443.231, the employee’s FLSA workweek in this situation begins at 5:00 p.m. Friday.
- For an employee whose regular schedule does not include Saturday as a service day, the FLSA workweek is established by considering Saturday as if it were a service day in the workweek with the employee’s regularly scheduled starting time. Thus, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins 8 hours prior to this Saturday service day starting time.
Example 3: Full-time Employee C has Saturdays and Sundays off and her first scheduled workday is Monday at 6:00 a.m. For purposes of establishing the FLSA workweek, 6:00 a.m. is considered as a Saturday service day starting time. Based on the FLSA workweek definition above, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins at 10:00 p.m. Friday.
The FLSA workweek for part-time employees is 168 consecutive hours established as follows:
- The employee’s normal starting time, as established by the installation head (for a part-time regular, this is his or her regularly scheduled starting time), is used as the basis for establishing the FLSA workweek by considering such starting time as if it were a Saturday service day starting time. The beginning of the FLSA workweek is 8 hours prior to this Saturday service day starting time, but in no case does it begin prior to 8:00 p.m. Friday.
Example 1: Part-time flexible Employee E normally reports to his pay location at 11:00 p.m. For purposes of establishing the FLSA workweek, the 11:00 p.m. starting time is considered a Saturday service day starting time, i.e., 11:00 p.m. Friday night. When the above FLSA workweek definition is applied, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins at 8:00 p.m. Friday.
Example 2: Part-time flexible Employee F normally reports to her pay location at 3:00 p.m. For purposes of establishing the FLSA workweek, the 3:00 p.m. starting time is considered a Saturday service day starting time. Applying the above FLSA workweek definition, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins at 7:00 a.m. Saturday.
Example 3: Part-time regular Employee G is regularly scheduled to report to his pay location at 6:00 p.m. For purposes of establishing the FLSA workweek, the 6:00 p.m. starting time is considered a Saturday service day starting time. Applying the above FLSA workweek definition, the employee’s FLSA workweek begins at 10:00 a.m. Saturday.
The FLSA exempts from its overtime provisions any employee whose work qualifies the employee as a bona fide executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, computer, or highly compensated employee. The Postal Service applies these classifications consistently, according to the requirements set forth in the FLSA and FLSA regulations.
The office of Compensation makes FLSA classification determinations.
