Cheryl M. Stanton, who was confirmed earlier this year by the U.S. Senate to be Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD), has issued her first batch of informal opinion letters applying the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to specific sets of facts.
FLSA opinion letters, which are issued by WHD on a periodic basis in response to a request, represent DOL’s current enforcement stance on a specific topic. While opinion letters do not have the same force as a regulation, the courts often have given them deference when ruling on FLSA compliance matters.
This most recent batch includes three letters, one of which provides helpful guidance on application of the so-called “highly compensated employee” (HCE) exemption by concluding that paralegals who earn at least $100,000 a year and perform at least one duty of a “white collar” FLSA-exempt employee are exempt from overtime eligibility. The other two letters discuss issues in the narrow context of the specific facts presented, and do not shed any new light on current FLSA compliance obligations.
Copies of the three opinion letters can be found online at https://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/search/index.htm?FLSA.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.