The recently released opinion letter goes on to state that where employee uniforms require ironing, dry cleaning, daily washing or other special treatment, employees must be reimbursed for uniform maintenance costs which reduce their wages below the legal minimum.

The employees are foreign nationals temporarily working in the U.S. receiving compensation both in the currency from their home country and in dollars. The employees meet the other requirements for exempt executive, administrative, or professional employees, but the dollar amount of their pay falls below the minimum salary requirement of $455 per week. The salary threshold is met when the amount is combined with the foreign currency using the applicable exchange rate at the time of payment, according to the opinion letter.

Overall, the Wage-Hour Division of the Dept. of Labor obtained more than $171 million in back wages for fiscal year 2006. More than $120 million was collected for overtime violations, and $15.2 million for federal minimum wage violations. The division also assessed employers $2.9 million in Fair Labor Standards Act civil money penalties. The most cited violation concerned the administrative duty test, where employees were not primarily performing office work directly related to management or general business operations. WHD Enforcement Report.

According to a recently released Dept. of Labor opinion letter, meal periods of less than half an hour, in which the employee is completely relieved from duty for the purpose of eating, may be unpaid under “special conditions.” These conditions include whether employees have sufficient time to eat a regular meal, whether there are work-related interruptions to the meal period, and whether the employees have agreed to the shorter period. The DOL letter cautions that meal periods of less than 20 minutes (if unpaid) would be “specially scrutinized” by Wage and Hour investigators to ensure that the time was sufficient to eat a regular meal under the circumstances.

Under the bill signed into law by President Bush on May 25, the federal hourly minimum wage will increase from $5.15 to $5.85 on July 24, then to $6.55 on July 24, 2008, and to $7.25 on July 24, 2009. Hawaii’s minimum wage is currently at $7.25 per hour, and may likely increase since historically the State Legislature has set it higher than the federal rate.

Applying the FLSA's Administrative Test
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employees who meet established exemption tests (e.g., Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer) do not need to be paid overtime. The Act is confusing and difficult to apply. The Administrative exemption has proven to be especially troublesome.

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