This is interesting! Is anyone else being paid a day rate for 12 hour days? Maybe he is the only one…
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From the article:
Justice Kavanaugh wrote: “As everyone agrees, Hewitt performed executive duties, earned about $200,000 per year, and received a predetermined salary of at least $963 per day for any week that he worked."
How does this work out to be $200,000 per year? I realize that the “…at least” implies he possibly could make more but this all seems to be pretty slippery.
Doesn’t this imply that Hewitt was not on a salary?
Hewitt’s biweekly paycheck amounted to his daily pay rate multiplied by the number of days he worked in the pay period.
Wouldn’t a salary be based on an annual amount and not depend on how many days actually worked?
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The key aspect to this entire thing is that his pay was a day rate. All the traditional definitions of salary are irrelevant if your pay is based on a daily amount.
They said that he is not on salary and is not an executive because he gets paid a day rate.
I agree that Hewitt was being paid a day rate. But I’d think what matters is not any traditional definition of the word “salary” but upon the relevant legal definition.
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And that’s the rub. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not adhere to those definitions.
"Kagan in her opinion noted that Hewitt’s compensation did not meet the conditions of that special rule, “which focuses on workers whose compensation is 'computed on an hourly, a daily or a shift basis.”
It’s going to be interesting…
Sounds to me like the biggest class action lawsuit in history is about to come down on every company that has paid their employees based on a daily rate… and they worked more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours in a week.
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Even time works out to 84 hours per week. SCOTUS ordered retroactive pay.
- Seems directly applicable to mariners. What happens now? 2. Think we’ll be seeing companies go to true salaries? Might not be a bad thing …
Transocean already is on a true salary system. Maybe they saw this ruling coming?
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“Kavanaugh, in his dissent joined by Justice Samuel Alito, noted that Hewitt had a daily predetermined minimum pay rate of $963 per day.”
Thanks for noticing the typo. It still does not work out to “more than $200,000 annually”
It wasn’t your typo, you quoted accurately from a later paragraph.
Maybe he got that much after paid travel days and annual training and such.
Study the wage and hour law. That’s what the SC did. The shipping companies just need to change their pay structure and job classification. What is “day rate”? Does that mean you can be required to work 20 hours a day? Day rate is ripe for abuse and that is what the court recognized.
When did that change? When I was there up until three years ago I was on a salary offered as a $/month figure. However if I got held onboard an extra day or two on crew change for weather then I got paid extra at a rate roughy equivalent to my monthly salary x 12 / 365 for the day worked and the off-day lost.
If he was a Toolpusher then he likely got a bonus, either performance or retention.
I find it a little humorous the description of a Toolpush as a bona fide executive performing “executive duties”. Is that a euphemism for using the head?
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I’m pretty sure that’s still legally a salary.
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Not if you look at the salary basis test @Kennebec_Captain posted, it should not vary based on actual time worked.
Every company I’ve ever worked for in the offshore sector paid day rates for 12 hour days
Hewitt was an industrial employee, not a seamen primarily involved in transportation.
I’m not sure that this case changes anything for seamen.
Looks like Hewitt won his case.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/u-s-supreme-court-rules-that-a-highly-8811489/