Is Your Title Costing You Money?
Have you ever noticed that people with lofty job titles are almost always paid on a salary basis? There is a reason for that. People who are “Professionals” are not entitled to overtime pay. Companies often misclassify employees as professionals in order to avoid paying them overtime and a fancy title is good cover.
For example, in Young v. Cooper Cameron, the company did not pay its “engineers” any overtime pay. The “engineers” were all paid salaries and were not pay extra for overtime because the company classified the engineers as professionals. This was a mistake.
The title of engineer was a little misleading. None of the engineers had any college training. They were all high school graduates. Under the law, In order to be properly classified as a “professional” and exempt from overtime, you generally need a college degree or even an advanced degree.
The workers in Young were misclassified as professionals and they should have been paid overtime. No wonder, the title of engineer does sound professional, but a title alone is not enough. Don’t be fooled by a title. You might be entitled to overtime even if you have a title such as manager, engineer or the like. For a more detailed discussion of the Young case, see our prior post below or the always insightful Waist a Second! blog.
