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THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT: 

IS IT MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE 

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WORKPLACE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORKFORCE PROTECTIONS 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 14, 2011 

Serial No. 112–33 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: 

www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/committee.action?chamber=house&committee=education 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Bob Goodlatte, Virginia 

Duncan Hunter, California 

David P. Roe, Tennessee 

Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania 

Tim Walberg, Michigan 

Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee 

Richard L. Hanna, New York 

Todd Rokita, Indiana 

Larry Bucshon, Indiana 

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 

Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania 

Kristi L. Noem, South Dakota 

Martha Roby, Alabama 

Joseph J. Heck, Nevada 

Dennis A. Ross, Florida 

Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania 

George Miller, California, 

Senior Democratic Member 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii 

Barrett Karr, Staff Director 

Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORKFORCE PROTECTIONS 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Chairman 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Bob Goodlatte, Virginia 

Todd Rokita, Indiana 

Larry Bucshon, Indiana 

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 

Kristi L. Noem, South Dakota 

Dennis A. Ross, Florida 

Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California, Ranking 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii 

George Miller, California 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 14, 2011 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Members: 

Walberg, Hon. Tim, Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections ... 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3 

Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., ranking minority member, Subcommittee on 

Workforce Protections ................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Alfred, Richard L., Esq., Seyfarth Shaw LLP ................................................ 21 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 23 

Conti, Judith M., federal advocacy coordinator, National Employment 

Law Project .................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 32 

Hara, Nobumichi, senior vice president, human capital, Goodwill Industries of Central Arizona ................................................................................ 41 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 42 

MacDonald, J. Randall, senior vice president, human resources, IBM ....... 8 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10 

Additional Submissions: 

Ms. Conti: 

Appendix: ‘‘Snapshot of Current and Recent Wage and Hour Suits 

Brought on Behalf of Workers’’ ............................................................. 39 

Prepared statement, dated March 6, 2002, before the Subcommittee 

on Workforce Protections, Committee on Education and the Workforce ......................................................................................................... 64 

Policy paper, ‘‘Flexible Workplace Solutions for Low-Wage Hourly 

Workers: A Framework for a National Conversation,’’ Internet address to ................................................................................................... 83 

Policy paper, ‘‘Improving Work-Life Fit in Hourly Jobs: An Underutilized Cost-Cutting Strategy in a Globalized World,’’ Internet address to ................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. Hara: 

Appendix: ‘‘Principles for a 21st Century Workplace Flexibility Policy’’ .......................................................................................................... 47 

Mr. MacDonald: 

Letter, dated August 9, 2011, to Chairman Kline .................................. 84 

Ms. Woolsey: 

Ness, Debra L., president, National Partnership for Women & Families, prepared statement of ................................................................... 61 

(1) 

THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT: 

IS IT MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE 

TWENTY–FIRST CENTURY WORKPLACE? 

Thursday, July 14, 2011 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, DC 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tim Walberg [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Walberg, Kline, Bucshon, Woolsey, 

Payne, Kucinich, and Hirono. 

Staff Present: Katherine Bathgate, Press Assistant/New Media 

Coordinator; Casey Buboltz, Coalitions and Member Services Coordinator; Ed Gilroy, Director of Workforce Policy; Benjamin Hoog, 

Legislative Assistant; Ryan Kearney, Legislative Assistant; Donald 

McIntosh, Professional Staff Member; Brian Newell, Deputy Communications Director; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Molly 

McLaughlin Salmi, Deputy Director of Workforce Policy; Linda Stevens, Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel; Alissa 

Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Loren Sweatt, Senior Policy Advisor; 

Aaron Albright, Minority Communications Director for Labor; 

Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk; John D’Elia, Minority Staff Assistant; 

Livia Lam, Minority Senior Labor Policy Advisor; Brian Levin, Minority New Media Press Assistant; Celine McNicholas, Minority 

Counsel; Megan O’Reilly, Minority General Counsel; Meredith 

Regine, Minority Labor Policy Associate; and Michele Varnhagen, 

Minority Chief Policy Advisor/Labor Policy Director. 

Chairman WALBERG. Good morning. A quorum being present, the 

subcommittee will come to order. 

I would like to extend a warm welcome to our guests and express 

appreciation to the witnesses for being with us this morning. 

Since the start of the 112th Congress, the Education and Workforce Committee has actively examined Federal laws, rules, and 

regulations within our jurisdiction. The intent of our oversight has 

been to take a close look at Federal policies and their impact on 

the economy, job creation, and taxpayers, not the least of which are 

a great concern to us. 

Just yesterday we advanced bipartisan legislation to modernize 

the Federal Worker’s Compensation program, updating assistance 

for beneficiaries and promoting better use of taxpayer dollars. I 
2 

hope this hearing will build upon the success of yesterday’s bipartisan initiative, and I certainly extend appreciation to my ranking 

member for her involvement in that success yesterday. 

We all agree that the Fair Labor Standards Act affects the lives 

of millions of workers. In fact, according to the Department of 

Labor, the Act governs the employment of more than 130 million 

workers. The law was a significant expansion of the government’s 

authority when it was created in the midst of the Great Depression, and it wields considerable influence over the workplaces of today’s modern economy as well. 

The law sets forth rules and regulations concerning minimum 

wage, the maximum number of hours worked in a week, and overtime pay. The law reflects our shared desire to see individuals receive fair compensation for their work. We all want, as the saying 

goes, to see a worker complete an honest day’s work for an honest 

day’s pay. The goal remains to this day, and it must be advanced 

in a manner that encourages economic growth and job creation. 

However, as we have learned time and time again with Federal 

policies, good intentions can often lead to unintended consequences. 

It is hard to imagine a law intended for the workforce known to 

Henry Ford can serve the needs of a workplace shaped by the innovations of Bill Gates. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly 

clear that the current Federal labor standards have fallen short of 

the times. 

In recent years, the law has caused a number of challenges for 

employers. A long history of regulations and judicial rulings has 

created ambiguity and uncertainty for employers who attempt to 

follow its every detail. This burden falls especially hard on small 

business owners who typically lack the expertise needed to understand the full scope of the law. As a result, an employer’s good intentions could leave him or her susceptible to costly legal challenges. 

That is why the explosion in wage and hour litigation is so disturbing. Private lawsuits filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act 

have skyrocketed over the past two decades, rising from roughly 

1,500 in the early 1990s to nearly 7,000 last year. At a time when 

every employer should be focused on creating jobs and hiring new 

workers, this is unacceptable. 

The law’s unintended consequences also affect workers. As anyone who carries a smartphone knows, the advantages of modern 

technology have blurred the line between work and home. This has 

invited the opportunity for greater flexibility in the workplace and 

can encourage more family friendly work environments as well. 

Unfortunately, the law can often stand in the way of this 

progress, creating more unknowns than opportunities for workplace 

flexibility and growth. As employers grapple with these complicated questions, they often institute defensive employment policies in order to better ensure full compliance with the law. As a 

result, workers are often kept to strict 40-hour work week requirements, even though they may welcome more work in exchange for 

additional income or a more flexible work schedule. Bonus payments and opportunities for after-hour job training can be limited. 

Employers may also curtail the use of certain technology that pro-
3 

vides the very kind of flexible work schedules employees increasingly desire. 

Last week, we learned unemployment continues to hover around 

9 percent and more than 14 million are unemployed. Smart policies 

that encourage growth and worker freedom are desperately needed 

in today’s economy. I look forward to today’s discussion and to considering positive solutions that will encourage greater flexibility 

and certainty in the workplace. 

I would now like to recognize the senior Democrat member of the 

subcommittee, Ms. Woolsey, our ranking member, for her opening 

remarks. 

[The statement of Mr. Walberg follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Tim Walberg, Chairman, 

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections 

Good morning. I would like to extend a warm welcome to our guests and express 

my appreciation to the witnesses for being with us today. 

Since the start of the 112th Congress, the Education and the Workforce Committee has actively examined federal laws, rules, and regulations within our jurisdiction. The intent of our oversight has been to take a close look at federal policies 

and their impact on the economy, job creation, and taxpayers. As a result of these 

efforts, just yesterday we advanced bipartisan legislation to modernize the federal 

workers’ compensation program, updating assistance for beneficiaries and promoting 

better use of taxpayer dollars. I hope this hearing will build upon the success of yesterday’s bipartisan initiative. 

We all agree that the Fair Labor Standards Act affects the lives of millions of 

workers. In fact, according to the Department of Labor, the act governs the employment of more than 130 million workers. The law was a significant expansion of the 

government’s authority when it was created in the midst of the Great Depression, 

and it wields considerable influence over the workplaces of today’s modern economy. 

The law sets forth rules and regulations concerning minimum wage, the maximum number of hours worked in a week, and overtime pay. The law reflects our 

shared desire to see individuals receive fair compensation for their work. We all 

want, as the saying goes, to see a worker complete an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. That goal remains to this day, and it must be advanced in a manner 

that encourages economic growth and job creation. 

However, as we have learned time and again with federal policies, good intentions 

can often lead to unintended consequences. It is hard to imagine a law intended for 

the workforce known to Henry Ford can serve the needs of a workplace shaped by 

the innovations of Bill Gates. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that 

current federal labor standards have fallen short of the times. 

In recent years, the law has caused a number of challenges for employers. A long 

history of regulations and judicial rulings has created ambiguity and uncertainty for 

employers who attempt to follow its every detail. This burden falls especially hard 

on small business owners, who typically lack the expertise needed to understand the 

full scope of the law. As a result, an employer’s good intentions could leave him susceptible to costly legal challenges. 

That is why the explosion in wage and hour litigation is so disturbing. Private 

lawsuits filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act have skyrocketed over the last 

two decades, rising from roughly 1,500 in the early 1990s to nearly 7,000 last year. 

At a time when every employer should be focused on creating jobs and hiring new 

workers, this is unacceptable. 

The law’s unintended consequences also affect workers. As anyone who carries a 

smartphone knows, the advantages of modern technology have blurred the line between work and home. This has invited the opportunity for greater flexibility in the 

workplace, and can encourage more family-friendly work environments. Unfortunately, the law can often stand in the way of this progress, creating more unknowns 

than opportunities for workplace flexibility and growth. 

As employers grapple with these complicated questions, they often institute defensive employment policies in order to better ensure full compliance with the law. As 

a result, workers are often kept to strict 40-hour work week requirements, even 

though they may welcome more work in exchange for additional income or a more 

flexible work schedule. Bonus payments and opportunities for after-hour job training 
4 

can be limited. Employers may also curtail the use of certain technology that provides the very kind of flexible work schedules employees increasingly desire. 

Last week, we learned unemployment continues to hover around 9 percent and 

more than 14 million are unemployed. Smart policies that encourage growth and 

worker freedom are desperately needed in today’s economy. I look forward to today’s 

discussion, and to considering positive solutions that will encourage greater flexibility and certainty in the workplace. 

I would now like to recognize the senior Democrat member of the subcommittee, 

Ms. Woolsey, for her opening remarks. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Nearly 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt declared, and I quote, 

our Nation is so richly endowed that we should be able to devise 

ways and means of ensuring to all able-bodied working men and 

women a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. 

Well, after that, the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA, was born 

of this guiding principle. The Act is our Nation’s governing law covering wages and hours of work. Prior to its passage, there were no 

limits on how many hours an employer could require its employees 

to work or how little it paid them. The Fair Labor Standards Act 

gave us a minimum wage and the weekend, fundamental rights 

that have improved our standard of living. Today, more than 130 

million American workers are covered by FLSA. 

It is true that the modern workplace has changed from when the 

law was enacted. Today, for many, the workplace is driven by technology, allowing jobs to be performed from remote locations, actually. Still, the occupations predicted to experience the greatest 

growth over the next decade include primarily service-sector jobs— 

cashiers, maintenance workers, nursing aides, and office clerks— 

workers for whom the protections provided by FLSA are fundamental. 

It is also true that there is nothing in the law that prevents employers from instituting family friendly scheduling changes that 

would lead to greater flexibility for workers. And they can do that 

without incurring overtime liability. We know that. It is being done 

all over this country and has been for the last 20 years. 

For example, under the current law, an employer could allow an 

employee to shift hours to those that accommodate personal needs 

like arriving at work early in order to leave early to pick up or to 

do whatever is necessary in their life—go to school, pick up children, whatever. 

In addition, an employer could allow for employees to work a 

compressed 4/10 schedule, 40 hours over 4 days, in order to manage family responsibilities or go to school or whatever their needs 

are. All of this is currently permitted under the law with no overtime liability. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act litigation we see today, for the 

most part, is not the result of well-meaning employers attempting 

to offer greater flexibility to workers and violating the law in the 

process. Instead, many cases involve the incorrect classification of 

a worker as exempt from overtime, when, in fact, they do not meet 

the tests established in the regulations, tests that were updated 

under the Bush administration as recently as 2004. Responsible 

employers who comply with minimum wage and overtime laws are 
5 

placed at a disadvantage when we allow their lawbreaking competitors to undercut them on labor costs. 

In addition, there is another abuse of the FLSA where workers 

are improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees, exempting them from not only FLSA protections but also 

exempting them from Workers Compensation, Family and Medical 

Leave, and the right to organize and bargain collectively. 

In the year 2005, a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that 

over 10 million U.S. workers, 7.4 percent of the workforce, had 

been misclassified as independent contractors, which cheats workers, cheats taxpayers, and employers who follow the law. According 

to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, this classification has diminished Federal revenues by $2.72 billion, $2.72 

billion just in the year 2006 alone. 

As a result, I introduced the Employee Misclassification Prevention Act in last Congress which would make it a violation of the 

recordkeeping provisions of FLSA to make an inaccurate classification. It would also ensure workers have protections and benefits 

that they are entitled to. I am prepared to introduce this bill again 

later this session. 

Lastly, I would like to remind the committee how important 

FLSA has been in promoting employment and helping the economy. 

The law provides a sound structure for the employment relationship and incentivizes the hiring of new workers by prohibiting others from being overworked. It provides the appropriate balance between the need of the business community to make profits and the 

basic rights that a worker deserves in an enlightened democracy. 

We must guard against any proposal that would undermine this 

carefully crafted balance. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to this hearing and 

the testimony of today’s witnesses. 

[The statement of Ms. Woolsey follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Lynn C. Woolsey, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections 

Nearly 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt declared, ‘‘Our nation so richly endowed 

* * * (that we) should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all ablebodied working men and women a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s w work.’’ 

The Fair Labor Standards Act (F FLSA) was born of this guiding principle. The 

A Act is our nation’s governing law covering wages and hours of work. Prior to its 

passage, there were no limits on how many hours an employer could require its employees to work or how little it paid o them. The FLSA gave us a minimum wage 

and the weekend—fundamental rights that have improved our standard of living. 

Today more than 130 million American workers are covered by the Fair Labor 

Standards Act. 

It is true that the modern workplace has changed from when the law was enacted 

d. For many workers, the workplace is technology driven, allowing them to perform 

their job b from remote locations. Still, the occupations predicted to experience 

growth over the next decade include primarily service sector jobs—cashiers, maintenance workers, nursing aids, and office clerks—workers for whom the protection ns 

provided by the FLSA are fundamental. 

It is also true that there is nothing g in the law that prevents employers from 

instituting scheduling changes that would lead to greater flexibility for workers 

without incurring overtime liability. 

For example, under the current la aw an employer could allow an employee to 

shift her hours to those that accommodate her personal needs like arriving at work 

early in order to o leave early and pick up children. In addition, an employer could 

allow for employees to work a compressed schedule—40 hours over 4 days in order 

to manage family responsibilities. 
6 

All of this is currently permitted under the law with no overtime liability. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act litigation we see today, for the most part, is not 

the result of well meaning employers attempting to offer greater flexibility to workers and violating the law in the process. Instead, many cases involve the incorrect 

classification of a worker as exempt when in fact they do not meet the tests established in the regulations—tests that were ‘‘updated’’ under the Bush Administration 

as recently as 2004. 

Responsible employers who comply with minimum wage and overtime laws are 

placed at a disadvantage when we allow their law breaking competitors to undercut 

them on labor costs. 

In addition, there is another abuse outside of the reach of FLSA where even more 

workers are improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees— 

exempting them from not only FLSA protections, but also workers’ compensation, 

family and medical leave, and the right to organize and bargain collectively. 

In 2005, a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that over 10 million U.S. workers—7.4 percent of the workforce—had been misclassified, rightly or wrongly, as 

independent contractors. Misclassification cheats workers and taxpayers. According 

to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, misclassification cost federal revenues $2.72 billion in 2006. 

As a result, I introduced the Employee Misclassification Prevention Act in the last 

Congress, which would make it a violation of the recordkeeping provisions of the 

Fair Labor Standards Act to make an inaccurate classification. 

It would also ensure workers have the protections and benefits that they are entitled. I am preparing to introduce this bill again later this session. 

Lastly, I’d like to remind the committee how important the FLSA has been in promoting employment and helping the economy. The law provides a sound structure 

for the employment relationship and incentivizes the hiring of new workers by prohibiting others from being overworked. It provides the appropriate balance between 

the need of the business community to make profits and the basic rights that a 

worker deserves in an enlightened democracy. We should guard against any proposal that would undermine this carefully crafted balance. 

Thank you and I look forward to hearing testimony from today’s witnesses. 

Chairman WALBERG. I thank the gentlelady. 

Pursuant to committee rule 7(c), all members will be permitted 

to submit written statements to be included in the permanent 

hearing record; and, without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow questions for the record, statements, and extraneous material referenced during the hearing to 

be submitted to the official hearing record. 

It is now my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel of witnesses. 

Randy MacDonald is a Senior Vice President of Human Resources for IBM. Mr. MacDonald has been with IBM since 2000. 

His capacity with IBM includes a number of things. He is responsible for global human resource practices, policies, and operations. 

Prior to joining IBM, Mr. MacDonald was the Executive Vice 

President of Human Resources and Administration for GTE, now 

Verizon Communications. Mr. MacDonald received his Bachelor’s 

Degree in political science and a Master’s Degree in industrial relations from St. Francis University. Mr. MacDonald is testifying on 

behalf of the H.R. Policy Association, for whom he serves as chairman of the board. 

Welcome. 

Richard Alfred is partner with Seyfart Shaw, LLP. Mr. Alfred’s 

practice is focused on employment litigation, with a particular emphasis on wage and hour collective and class actions, complex litigation, high stakes discrimination, and wrongful termination cases 

and noncompetition matters. 
7 

Mr. Alfred is the chair of Seyfarth Shaw’s National Wage and 

Hour Litigation Practice Group and the firm’s Boston Office Labor 

and Employment Group. Mr. Alfred received his B.A. from Harvard 

College and his J.D. from the Harvard School of Law. 

Welcome. 

Judy Conti is the Federal Advocacy Coordinator with the National Employment Law Project, NELP. With NELP, Ms. Conti advocates on issues related to unemployment insurance, enforcement 

of workplace standards, and civil rights. 

Prior to joining NELP, Ms. Conti was the co-founder and executive director of the D.C. Employment Justice Center, a non profit 

organization promoting workplace justice in the D.C. metropolitan 

area. Ms. Conti has served as adjunct professor at William and 

Mary Law School, George Washington University Law School, and 

Catholic University Law School. Ms. Conti is a 1991 graduate of 

Williams College and a 1994 graduate of the Marshall Wythe 

School of Law at the 

College of William and Mary. 

Welcome. 

Nobumichi Hara—did I come close? 

Mr. HARA. Yes, you did. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you for being kind about that—is 

Senior Vice President of Human Capital with Goodwill of Central 

Arizona. Mr. Hara has been with Goodwill of Central Arizona for 

4 years and has 20 years of experience as the head of human resources in various industries. 

Mr. Hara also serves as President of the Senior Human Resources Executive Council and Vice President of the Arizona Total 

Rewards Association. Mr. Hara’s previous nonprofit board memberships include the United Way and Physician Hospital Community 

Organization. He received both his undergraduate and graduate 

degrees from California State University, Long Beach, and he holds 

a Senior Professional Human Resources designation. Mr. Hara is 

testifying on behalf of the Society for Human Resource Managers. 

I welcome you as well. 

Before I recognize each of you to provide your testimony, let me 

briefly explain our lighting system, which is not complicated. 

You will each have 5 minutes to present your testimony. When 

you begin, the light in front of you will turn green. When 1 minute 

is left, the light will turn yellow. And when your time has expired 

the light will turn red, at which point I ask you to wrap up your 

remarks as best you are able, as quickly as you are able as well. 

After everyone has testified, members will each have 5 minutes 

to ask questions of the panel; and I will attempt to keep the same 

process of 5 minutes there as well. 

I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning, and I would like 

to again thank the witnesses for being here. 

I am jumping ahead. I have got the questions. You need to give 

the statements. 

Mr. MacDonald, let’s begin with you. 
8 

STATEMENT OF J. RANDALL MACDONALD, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES, IBM, ON BEHALF OF THE 

HR POLICY ASSOCIATION 

Mr. MACDONALD. I panicked for a second. 

Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Woolsey, 

and members of the committee. My name is Randy MacDonald. I 

am Senior Vice President of Human Resources for the IBM Corporation. 

I am also here as Chairman of the H.R. Policy Association, representing 325 chief human resource officers of the largest corporations doing best in the United States and around the world. We 

represent almost 10 million people in the United States. 

The Association recently published a blueprint for jobs in the 

21st century. The report gives a clear business view on how to restore growth and competitiveness within the United States. In direct contrast to the law at issue today, the report recommends 

workplace regulation premised on fair and equitable treatment in 

a contemporary workplace. The report’s recommendations inform 

my testimony. 

In my mind, the Fair Labor Standards Act is failing America. It 

is not employer friendly. It is not employee friendly. It yields advantages to global competitors without commensurate payback to 

the U.S. worker. It has become a break on employers’ line to incent 

to hire, the use of technology, on employers’ flexibility, and on employees’ opportunity for good jobs. 

In our mind, an entirely new model exists for how, where, and 

when work needs to be completed. In that context, professional employees who are being dramatically affected by the Fair Labor 

Standards Act have quite different expectations of how they should 

be treated. Simply put, the FLSA must be modernized and clarified 

or else jobs will not return and, even more terribly, new jobs will 

not materialize in the United States. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted when Ford Motor 

Company, as somebody suggested previous to this, was making 

model A’s on its production line with no substantial technology and 

when IBM created a room-sized calculator, which is now as small 

as the one I hold in my hand right now. 

Meanwhile, there, in my mind, has been no meaningful change 

in the FLSA to contemporize its principles. Let me give you just 

a few examples. 

Five years ago, we voluntarily reclassified 7,000 of our highly 

educated computer employees to nonexempt, because we could not 

be certain whether they met the 1990 criteria for the computer employee exemption. These workers had salaries averaging $77,000 

per annum, some up to $150,000. We lowered their base salaries 

by 15 percent to account for the potential overtime and to maintain 

market-based competition with similar nonexempt jobs. Not surprisingly, half of them—nearly half of them contested their reclassification system within our appeal process. 

Another example is one major retailer requires its delivery drivers to pick up and drop off their PDAs at the store every day for 

fear that they can’t track or prevent them from using those after 

hours. So these employees, in my mind, waste time in traffic, burn 

energy, create pollution, and get to spend less time at home. 
9 

An aerospace company must limit the amount of discretion exercised by a highly educated entry level engineer due to security content of their jobs. Because discretion is the largest litmus test for 

the Act, they must be classified as nonexempt, totally at odds with 

their training and their compensation. 

In a recent HR Policy Association survey, 56 percent of the companies said they impose restrictions on the use of PDAs outside the 

workplace, 44 percent impose limits on flexible work hours, and 32 

percent restrict telecommuting by their nonexempt employees. Why 

these impositions? We believe it is because of the Fair Labor 

Standards Act. 

This law even muddies our ability to accurately cost our U.S. 

labor. We can’t cost with confidence, because we can’t price with 

confidence. It becomes, if you will, a lottery. 

How does this law give us a serious business person in the confidence of hiring a U.S. worker? It is a dilemma for all of us, and 

it gets worse. 

Employers have experienced an explosion in litigation as plaintiffs’ attorneys literally troll for companies to sue, taking advantage 

of, in my mind, outdated and nebulous provisions in an attempt to 

extort tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars from dependents. 

Even the Department of Labor has been sued for Fair Labor Standard Act violations in their own house. If they can’t get it right, who 

can? 

These actions on this committee and the Congress can take to fix 

some of these problems. I respectfully request that the committee 

Act promptly on the five recommendations that we have put into 

our paper that are included in my written testimony. 

Plain and simple, the U.S. leads in innovation. The U.S. leads 

through companies like IBM in the work practices. However, the 

U.S. doesn’t lead in contemporary work rules. The Fair Labor 

Standards Act binds our business and our workers in a Europeanstyle regulatory knot that restrains growth, innovation, jobs, and 

work life flexibility. We aren’t Europe. America fixes its problems, 

and we must fix this one. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The statement of Mr. MacDonald follows:] 
10 
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15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
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Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 

Mr. Alfred, I recognize you for your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD L. ALFRED, PARTNER, 

SEYFARTH SHAW, LLP 

Mr. ALFRED. Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Woolsey, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Richard Alfred, and I am a partner at the national law firm of Seyfarth 

Shaw. I am pleased to provide this testimony today to address the 
22 

substantial problems faced by employers in attempting to apply the 

Fair Labor Standards Act to the 21st century. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act is an anachronism in today’s economy. This has led to an explosion of litigation over the past decade 

that has imposed enormous—in some cases catastrophic—burdens 

on employers. The uncertainty and instability resulting from this 

increased litigation have harmful impact on employers’ ability to 

maintain and create jobs and on economic growth. 

Let me illustrate these points through two exhibits that are attached to my written testimony. 

Exhibit 1 illustrates that between 2000 and 2010 the number of 

FLSA lawsuits filed in Federal courts throughout the country has 

increased by more than 300 percent. Approximately 40 percent of 

those lawsuits are collective and class actions involving claims by 

hundreds, thousands, and, in some instances, tens of thousands of 

employees. 

Exhibit 2 lists the largest wage and hour collected in class-action 

settlements in the country since 2004, which range up to $135 million; and some employers are hit twice or more. The amounts 

shown on this chart for settlements are in lawsuits in which the 

worst-case exposure was many times these amounts. These 

megacases affect employers in many different industries, including 

insurance, financial services, retail, hospitality, technology, and 

employees in the public sector. This list does not include the many 

thousands of additional settlements and verdicts in smaller 

amounts. 

To be sure, an employer that engages in unscrupulous practices 

or intentionally violates the law should be held accountable. However, in my experience defending and overseeing the defense of 

hundreds of wage and hour lawsuits, the overwhelming majority of 

employers make a good-faith effort to comply with the law. 

Virtually all wage and hour cases today arise in the context of 

ambiguities and inconsistencies in the FLSA. Many involve statutory terms that have never been defined or have been interpreted 

in conflicting ways. Chief among these is the most fundamental of 

all of the FLSA’s concepts, the term ‘‘work’’ itself. 

Compounding those problems are the efforts of well-intentioned 

employers that are forced to shoehorn issues of today’s workplace 

into a statutory framework designed to meet the needs of the vastly different Depression-era economy. As but one example, the key 

regulation that defines the workday describes it as encompassing 

roughly the period from whistle to whistle. Often, these cases concern practices that have previously been endorsed by the Department of Labor, or at least have never been challenged. 

The absurdity of the litigation-festering atmosphere is exemplified in the currently ongoing legal battle over the classification of 

pharmaceutical sales representatives, who have, since the FLSA 

became law in 1938, been treated by the entire industry and by the 

Department of Labor, until very recently, as exempt. However, decisions in the more than 70 lawsuits brought against virtually 

every pharmaceutical company in the country by enterprising 

plaintiffs’ lawyers challenging these employees’ exempt status, 

while seeking millions of dollars in legal fees, in the past 5 years 

have reached dramatically different conclusions. As a result, a 
23 

pharmaceutical company today must treat its sales representatives 

in New York as nonexempt under Second Circuit law, while that 

same company may treat its sales representatives just 10 miles 

away, across the Hudson River in New Jersey, as exempt under 

Third Circuit law. 

If our Federal courts can’t agree on the correct interpretation of 

the FLSA, how can well-meaning employers be expected to do better? 

Legal absurdities such as this—and there are many—hinder economic growth. Employers faced with payroll uncertainty and the 

inevitable risk of litigation are likely to hire conservatively. Even 

six figure exposure, relatively small compared to many FLSA collective actions, may be insufficient to drive small companies out of 

business entirely, adding to unemployment. 

In addition to promoting job growth, greater clarity in the law 

would help employees as well. Employees would benefit from pay 

and classification decisions that are more clearly consistent with 

the law. This would reduce the need for litigation with its long 

delays and substantial attorneys’ fees. 

In addition, many employees, especially those with young children, want alternative work schedules. Technological advances 

have made telecommuting from home easier than ever. But the 

FLSA has not kept pace with these developments. 

It is long past time for the FLSA to be updated to reflect our 

modern workplace, and these much-needed reforms would benefit 

the economy by providing additional clarity to employers and additional flexibility for employees. 

I thank the subcommittee again for providing me this opportunity to testify, and I look forward to answering any questions you 

may have. 

[The statement of Mr. Alfred follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Richard L. Alfred, Esq., Seyfarth Shaw LLP 

Good morning Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Woolsey, and distinguished 

members of the subcommittee. My name is Richard Alfred, and I am pleased to provide this testimony to address the substantial problems faced by employers in attempting to apply the Fair Labor Standards Act to the twenty-first century workplace. I am a Partner with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, a national law firm with ten offices 

nationwide and one of the largest labor and employment practices in the United 

States. Nationwide, over 350 Seyfarth Shaw attorneys provide advice, counsel, and 

litigation defense representation in connection with wage and hour claims, as well 

as other labor and employment matters affecting both employers and employees in 

their workplaces.1

I. Executive Summary 

This testimony addresses the explosion of litigation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (‘‘FLSA’’) in recent years and the manner in which that litigation demonstrates the need for reform. First enacted in 1938, the FLSA has become an 

anachronism in today’s workplace. The statute has not been comprehensively revised in more than sixty years. Likewise, the key regulations interpreting that statute maintain, for the most part, the same structure and content as they did when 

they were drafted more than half a century ago. Ambiguities that have existed in 

the statute since its inception, coupled with the fact that the statute has not kept 

pace with changes in the American workforce, have lead to inconsistent judicial and 

regulatory interpretations, increased litigation and unfairly exposed employers to 

potentially catastrophic results. Examples include litigation concerning what activities are included in compensable time, and application of the ‘‘white collar’’ exemptions from overtime to positions in virtually all industries and business sectors. Examples considered here include retail store managers, pharmaceutical sales representatives and mortgage loan officers. Clarification of employers’ obligations is 
24 

needed to increase compliance and decrease the burdensome litigation that currently plagues even well intentioned employers. Employees would also benefit greatly from clarity in the law as a result of easier and more certain employer compliance 

in its pay practices and classification decisions, a reduction in prolonged and expensive litigation, and the ability to maintain flexible work schedules through alternative work schedules and locations. 

II. Introduction 

I am the Chairperson of Seyfarth Shaw’s Labor and Employment Department’s 

National Wage & Hour Litigation Practice Group consisting of about 70 of our lawyers from the firm’s ten domestic offices. I have practiced in the areas of employment counseling and litigation defense for more than 32 years in Boston, Massachusetts. I am a member of both the Massachusetts and New York bars. Members of 

Seyfarth Shaw have written a number of treatises on employment laws, including 

a forthcoming first-of-its-kind treatise dedicated entirely to the defense of wage and 

hour collective and class action litigation to be published by Law Journal Press., a 

division of ALM Media, Inc.; defended many hundreds of wage and hour individual, 

collective and class actions under the FLSA and analogous state laws; and advised 

thousands of employers on wage and hour compliance issues. We have also conducted a great many workplace pay practices and exempt job classification assessments for our clients. 

My personal practice for almost a decade has focused on the defense of wage and 

hour collective and class actions under federal and state laws. I have represented 

U.S. businesses—some as large as Fortune 50 companies and others much smaller— 

in dozens of wage and hour lawsuits primarily in federal courts in many jurisdictions throughout the country. I am a frequent lecturer and have published numerous articles on wage and hour topics. 

III. The Fair Labor Standards Act 

Enacted in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act generally requires covered employers to pay their nonexempt employees at least the federal minimum wage, currently 

set at $7.25, for all hours worked, and overtime premium pay of one-and-a-half 

times the employee’s regular rate for hours worked in excess of forty in any workweek. The main substantive provisions of the Act have remained largely unchanged 

since they were enacted more than seventy years ago. In fact, recent Congressional 

action has been infrequent and has addressed such marginal (albeit important in 

certain circumstances) issues as whether stock options are included in the regular 

rate, or whether receiving food from a food kitchen might create an employment relationship. 

The FLSA’s most significant revision occurred in 1947, following a surge of litigation arising from the Supreme Court’s decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery 

Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), which held that the time spent by pottery factory workers 

traveling from the entrance of the plant to their work stations was compensable 

work time. The 1947 amendments, known as the ‘‘Portal-to-Portal Act,’’ limited the 

Act’s retroactive application; redefined its statute of limitations; substituted a ‘‘collective’’ action procedure for allowing ‘‘similarly situated’’ individuals to join a lawsuit as ‘‘parties plaintiffs’’ in place of a class action mechanism; and excluded ‘‘preliminary and postliminary activities’’ from compensable time, all in an effort to reduce the rising litigation under the statute. 

In its findings in connection with the adoption of the 1947 statutory amendments, 

Congress stated: ‘‘[T]he Fair Labor Standards Act * * * has been interpreted judicially in disregard of long-established customs, practices, and contracts between employers and employees, thereby creating wholly unexpected liabilities, immense in 

amount and retroactive in operation * * *.’’ 29 U.S.C. § 251(a). 

IV. An Anachronistic Law Applied to Today’s Workplace 

As they did in 1947, employers once again face immense, unexpected liability 

under the FLSA. The workplace of the twenty-first century has little resemblance 

to the manufacturing predominant workplace of decades ago. The FLSA and its 

lengthy regulations, always difficult to interpret because of the many ambiguities 

and technicalities built into the law, are almost impossible for employers to apply 

with any certainty in the context of today’s very different workplace. Compounding 

this problem are the inconsistent and often conflicting court decisions that attempt 

to deal with this anachronistic legal framework. The result has been an explosion 

of lawsuits, with the resulting risks, expense, and potentially catastrophic exposure 

challenging well-intentioned decisions of businesses attempting in good faith to 

apply a pre-World War II statute in the context of a fast-paced technological world. 

From 2000 through 2010, the number of FLSA lawsuits filed in the federal courts 

has increased by more than 300%. Last year, more than 6,000 lawsuits, affecting 
25 

virtually all industries and business sectors, were filed in the federal courts claiming violations of the Act.2 This number excludes the thousands of additional wage 

and hour lawsuits filed in state courts under analogous state laws. See Exhibit 1, 

showing the growth in federal court wage and hour case filings since 2000. 

About 40% of these federal wage and hour lawsuits are brought as collective actions, in which one or a few employees seek certification of a group of hundreds, 

thousands, or even tens of thousands of current and former ‘‘similarly situated’’ employees. Since 2004, reported verdicts and settlements in collective and class actions 

against businesses operating in the United States for alleged violations of the FLSA 

have reached as high as $210,000,000. While this staggering amount may be an 

outlier, there have been others in the nine figures, many in the eight figures and 

countless others in the seven and high six figures. See Attachment 2, listing the 

largest wage and hour collective/class settlements between 2004 and 2010.3

Of course, if an employer intentionally violates the law, cheats its employees out 

of pay or otherwise engages in unscrupulous practices aimed at exploiting employees 

or depriving them of earned compensation, one might conclude that it deserves the 

risk presented by a collective action. However, in my many years defending these 

lawsuits and monitoring the defense of hundreds of such lawsuits defended by other 

Seyfarth Shaw lawyers and colleagues at other law firms, I can testify that this is 

rarely the case. In fact, I can state without hesitation that, in my career, I have 

seen only a small handful of truly intentional wage and hour violations. 

Virtually all of these cases involve ambiguous or technical requirements. In the 

private sector, they fall generally into four types: (1) those that challenge the exempt classification of a group of employees such as computer technicians, store managers, analysts, and sales representatives; (2) those that challenge a company’s pay 

practices such as those that treat certain activities as noncompensable pre- and 

postliminary activities; (3) those that arise from company policies and practices that 

may run afoul of the strict salary basis requirement for exempt employees such as 

deductions from weekly pay because of employee absences; and (4) those that challenge the employer’s computation of the ‘‘regular rate’’ used in calculating overtime 

pay. I will focus on the first two types—misclassification and ‘‘off-the-clock’’ claims. 

Greater clarity in the law that gives rise to litigation under both of these types 

of claims would also be helpful to employees. First, through consistent and more 

predictable employer compliance, employees would benefit at the outset from pay 

and classifications decisions that are more clearly consistent with the law. Second, 

such consistency would reduce prolonged and expensive litigation that delays benefits to employees and requires them to pay a large portion of whatever recovery they 

may obtain in attorneys’ fees and costs. Finally, employees, especially women with 

young children, want and seek alternative work schedules and locations that are 

possible today through arrangements such as telecommuting from home and working schedules that fit well with homecare obligations. Uncertainty in wage and hour 

obligations provides disincentives to employers to allow such practices. Federal law 

reform, on the other hand, could be a vehicle for providing an incentive to employers, without fear of litigation contesting off-the-clock and exempt misclassification 

claims, to adopt and expand flexible work programs. 

V. What is Work? 

Some of the most litigated ambiguities in the FLSA result from key terms that 

have never been defined. This has left the courts and the Department of Labor to 

decide to whom the Act’s overtime provisions apply and the types of activities for 

which those employees must be compensated. Exacerbating this problem, the statute’s provisions have never been comprehensively updated to conform with the requirements of today’s technological workplace. The resulting patchwork of judicial 

and regulatory guidance is replete with inconsistencies and, in many instances, is 

badly out-of-date. For example, neither the statute nor the DOL regulations define 

the most basic term that is at the heart of the FLSA’s requirements—‘‘work.’’ 4

While leaving the definition of work unresolved, the DOL and courts apply what 

is known as the ‘‘continuous workday’’ to determine whether an employee’s activities 

are compensable.5 Under this principle, all time spent by an employee between the 

first and last ‘‘principal activity’’ of the day, other than actual break times of at 

least thirty minutes, is presumptively ‘‘work.’’ While this doctrine may have made 

sense when the DOL devised it in 1947, it is anachronistic in a world where employees have 24-hour access to email through their blackberries and iPhones and can 

access their employer’s computer systems from anywhere in the world, including 

their homes, via Citrix or VPN connections. The very language chosen by the DOL 

to describe the ‘‘workday’’—‘‘roughly * * * the period from ‘whistle to whistle,’ ’’— 

underscores the degree to which this concept is out of touch with the electronic 

workplace of this century.6 29 C.F.R. § 790.6(a). 
26 

It is easy to imagine the challenges that can arise in applying this framework to 

modern working conditions. If an administrative assistant spends five minutes each 

night and another five minutes each morning checking her smart phone for email 

before going to bed and after waking up, must she be paid for this time? If so, how 

does an employer track this time to determine how much she should be paid? Must 

a call center operator be paid for the time he spends drinking his coffee while waiting for his computer to boot in the morning? 7 The dramatically inconsistent case 

law bears out these difficulties in application. 

For example, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed a case involving technicians in California who install and repair car alarm systems at customers’ 

locations. The court determined that these employees were not entitled to compensation for their time spent traveling to their first job site of the day, even though they 

first spent time at home retrieving assignments from a handheld computer, 

prioritizing jobs, and completing paperwork, because those activities are so minor 

as to be ‘‘de minimis.’’ Rutti v. LoJack Corp., 596 F. 3d 1046 (9th Cir. 2010). This 

result seems sensible, but unfortunately it is at odds with decisions of courts in 

other jurisdictions. A court in Massachusetts, for example, decided that very similar 

activities to those at issue in Rutti performed by insurance adjusters—checking 

email and voicemail and preparing their computers for use during the day—were 

significant and triggered the beginning of the continuous workday, making their 

subsequent commute time compensable time. Dooley v Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 307 

F. Supp. 2d 234 (D. Mass. 2004). Thus, in the states of the Ninth Circuit—Alaska, 

Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Oregon—checking your 

email before you drive to work probably will not make your commuting time compensable, but in Massachusetts it might. Other seemingly arbitrary distinctions also 

have come to have great significance in determining what is work time under the 

FLSA and what is not. For example, whether a commute to a job site in a company 

van is compensable work time may depend on whether the employees ‘‘must’’ or 

‘‘may’’ take the company’s van to the work site, and, thus, compensability may turn 

on the happenstance of the words used rather than on the substance of the policy, 

itself.8

Even the manufacturing industry, which features workplaces that are more similar to those envisioned by Congress in 1938, has been plagued by litigation concerning the meaning of ‘‘work.’’ One particularly intense area of litigation has concerned the ‘‘donning and doffing’’ of protective clothing. In one case, for example, the 

Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that employees of a poultry processing plant 

in Pennsylvania must be paid for the time they spend putting on hair nets, beard 

nets, smocks, and safety glasses. DeAsencio v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 500 F.3d 361 (3d 

Cir. 2007). The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, on the other hand, found that employees at a meat-packing plant in Kansas do not need to be compensated for the 

time they spend changing into virtually identical gear. Reich v. IBC, Inc., 38 F.3d 

1123 (10th Cir. 1994). The same company, Tyson Foods, Inc., owned both the Kansas and the Pennsylvania plants at issue in these cases, demonstrating the degree 

to which employers may face conflicting legal obligations based solely on geography. 

Such dilemmas are acute for companies that operate nationwide. 

VI. Exempt Classifications 

Similarly intense confusion surrounds the question of which employees are entitled to overtime under the FLSA. The Act exempts from overtime any ‘‘employee 

employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity * * * or 

in the capacity of outside salesman,’’ but does not define those terms. 29 U.S.C. 

213(a)(1). The Department of Labor’s exempt status regulations, 29 C.F.R. § 541, 

which are intended to fill that void, were amended marginally in 2004. The 2004 

revisions, for example, added a new regulation exempting ‘‘Computer Employees,’’ 

but defined it so narrowly that, by its terms, it applies only to employees involved 

in system or software design, and does not apply to most information technology 

jobs. See 29 C.F.R. § 541.400(b).9 The more commonly utilized ‘‘white collar’’ exemptions maintain the same basic structure that has been in effect for over half a century. This framework is complex, difficult to interpret, and hard to apply, leading 

to conflicting judicial interpretations of its provisions. 

Retailers, for example, have faced a dramatic rise in litigation over the exempt 

status of store managers, positions that traditionally have been classified as exempt 

under the executive exemption.10 Plaintiffs in these lawsuits challenge this classification and seek overtime pay for the many hours worked by these managers above 

40 per week. Even where it is not disputed that the manager is ‘‘in charge’’ of the 

store and supervises all of its employees, some courts have found that insufficient 

to prove the applicability of the exemption. Rather, whether the manager is exempt 

turns on whether his ‘‘primary duty’’ is that management, which as a practical mat-
27 

ter is often, but erroneously, equated by courts to the amount of time he spends dayto-day assisting the employees he supervises with ‘‘non-exempt’’ tasks.11 Seemingly 

similar job positions have gone in opposite ways in this inquiry. The Sixth Circuit 

affirmed an Ohio court’s ruling that gas station/convenience store managers were 

exempt. Thomas v. Speedway Superamerica, LLC, 506 F.3d 496 (6th Cir. 2006). The 

Eleventh Circuit held that managers of a dollar store with a comparable level of responsibility to those of the store managers at issue in the Sixth Circuit case are not 

exempt. Morgan v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233 (11th Cir. 2008). 

Another highly publicized example of inconsistent guidance on an exempt classification issue involves the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies typically employ ‘‘sales representatives’’ or ‘‘detailers’’ whose job it is to visit prescribing 

physicians, educate them on the benefits of the company’s products, and encourage 

them to prescribe those pharmaceuticals. They are paid handsomely for this work— 

it is not unusual for pharmaceutical sales representatives to earn in excess of 

$100,00 per year in salary, incentive payments, and benefits.12 The pharmaceutical 

industry has long considered these individuals to be exempt from overtime under 

the administrative and outside sales exemptions, and the DOL has long acquiesced 

in this practice. As early as 1945, the Department of Labor issued an opinion letter 

stating that ‘‘medical detailists’’ whose job was ‘‘aimed at increasing the use of the 

[employer’s] product in hospitals and through physicians’ recommendations’’ met the 

requirements of the administrative exemption. Likewise, since 1940 the DOL had 

defined the outside sales exemption in a broad, non-technical manner that easily encompassed the work performed by pharmaceutical sales representatives, explaining 

that a ‘‘salesman [must] in some sense make a sale.’’ Dep’t of Labor, Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Salesman Redefined (Oct. 10, 1940) at 45-46 (emphasis added). 

The application of these exemptions in the pharmaceutical industry, however, is 

now in a state of flux. More than seventy sales representative lawsuits against more 

than a dozen different pharmaceutical and life sciences companies have been filed 

in the past five years, each alleging an entitlement to overtime. These lawsuits have 

met with dramatically different and conflicting results. The Department of Labor 

weighed in on the issue in a case against Novartis Pharmaceuticals in the Second 

Circuit Court of Appeals, filing a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that sales representatives are not exempt. Amicus Brief of Secretary of Labor, In re Novartis 

Wage & Hour Litig., 611 F.3d 141, 149 (2d Cir. 2010). In so doing, the DOL not 

only reversed its sixty year-old position on sales representatives and advocated for 

a substantive change in the manner in which the administrative exemption is interpreted generally, but it did so in the context of a judicial briefing and not through 

actual rule-making. 

The administrative exemption regulations include three requirements: the exempt 

employee must (1) meet certain salary requirements, (2) have a primary duty consisting office or non-manual work directly related to management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers, and (3) exercise discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance. 29 C.F.R. § 

541.200. Traditionally, this third requirement has been an either/or proposition—either an employee exercises discretion and independent judgment or she does not. 

The DOL, however, took the position that it is a quantitative requirement, and that 

an employee must exercise a sufficient level of independent judgment and discretion. The Second Circuit deferred to the DOL and ruled that Novartis’s sales representatives must be paid overtime. The court also adopted the DOL’s position that 

sales representatives are not exempt outside salespersons because FDA regulations 

prohibit them from directly selling pharmaceutical products to patients. 

Other courts of appeals have ruled differently on these issues. In February of this 

year, the Ninth Circuit decided that pharmaceutical sales representatives for 

GlaxoSmithKline qualify for the outside sales exemption, rejecting the DOL’s position in part because it conflicted with the Department’s long-standing views. Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 635 F.3d 383 (9th Cir. 2011). The Third Circuit ruled last year that sales representatives for Johnson & Johnson are administratively exempt. Smith v. Johnson & Johnson, 593 F.3d 280 (3d Cir. 2010). Thus, 

a sales representative assigned to a territory in New York, which is part of the Second Circuit, must receive overtime, but a sales representative for the same company 

assigned to a territory in New Jersey—a short commuter train ride away—is exempt. District courts in Illinois and Indiana have also reached opposite conclusions 

on this same issue.13 For a nationwide employer, complying with these conflicting 

standards is fraught with the possibility of an inadvertent misclassification. There 

are hazards for the employees as well. As one pharmaceutical industry group has 

pointed out, many pharmaceutical sales representatives are attracted to the position 

because of its flexibility, and that flexibility is likely to diminish if sales representa-
28 

tives must punch a clock or otherwise log their time so that their overtime pay may 

be calculated accurately. See Amicus Brief of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Support of Petition for Certiorari, Novartis Pharmaceuticals 

Corp. v. Lopes, No. 10-460 (Nov. 5, 2010). 

A similar pattern of shifting regulatory guidance emerges with respect to mortgage loan officers (‘‘MLOs’’). These individuals, who work for banks and mortgage 

companies and are responsible for guiding homebuyers through the mortgage application process, are often classified as administratively exempt. MLOs commonly receive incentive compensation based on the number of loans they close, and with 

these incentives may earn total annual compensation well within the six-figure 

range.14 In 2006, the DOL issued an opinion letter stating that MLOs’ typical job 

duties, including responding to customer inquiries and leads, collecting and analyzing financial information, and advising customers about the risks and benefits of 

various loan alternatives, meet the requirements of the administrative exemption.15

Less than four years later, the DOL withdrew that guidance, issuing an ‘‘Interpretive Guidance,’’ a newly created form of generalized administrative guidance, stating 

that loan officers are not exempt because their primary duty is not ‘‘directly related 

to the management or general business operations’’ of their employers or their employers’ customers.16 According to the DOL, MLOs’ primary duty is sales, which 

makes them more like production workers than administrators.17 Numerous class 

action lawsuits on behalf of loan officers seeking to capitalize on the DOL’s sudden 

about-face are currently pending in the federal courts.18

Lawsuits by securities brokers or ‘‘registered representatives’’ claiming to be overtime-eligible have also become increasingly common. Like MLOs, these employees 

claim to be salespersons, rather than true administrative employees. In addition, at 

least one Minnesota court has determined that the fact that these employees must 

have passed a Series 7 securities representative examination is not sufficient to 

make them exempt professionals. In re RBC Dain Rauscher Overtime Litig., 703 F. 

Supp. 2d 910, 926 (D. Minn. 2010). Citigroup and UBS have settled lawsuits by 

their brokers for huge amounts—$98 million and $89 million, respectively.19

These results are incongruous with the purpose of the white collar exemptions: 

‘‘the section 13(a)(1) exemptions were premised on the belief that the workers exempted typically earned salaries well above the minimum wage, and they were presumed to enjoy other compensatory privileges such as above average fringe benefits 

and better opportunities for advancement, setting them apart from the nonexempt 

workers entitled to overtime pay.’’ Preamble to Exempt Status Regulations, 69 Fed. 

Reg. 22122, 22123-24 (Apr. 23, 2004). The positions held by pharmaceutical sales 

representatives, mortgage loan officers, and stockbrokers are what most of us would 

think of as ‘‘good jobs.’’ For the most part, they are highly paid, prestigious, and 

receive good benefits. If a mortgage loan officer earning $200,000 a year must receive time-and-a-half for his overtime hours, while a public school teacher scraping 

by on $20,000 a year is unquestionably exempt, we have strayed far from the 

FLSA’s original intent. 

VII. Conclusion 

The current state of the FLSA has left employers in a quandary. Determination 

of the number of compensable hours worked, application of the white collar exemptions, and other important concepts in the statute have never been straightforward 

due to the statute’s definitional gaps. Because the statue has never comprehensively 

been updated or clarified, employers now also must contend with the fact that the 

statute was designed to apply to a very different kind of workplace than exists for 

most American workers today. Unable to avoid liability in these highly technical 

lawsuits merely by paying their employees generously—many of the largest judgments and settlements under the statute have benefited highly paid employees— 

they are forced to wade through conflicting judicial decisions and rapidly shifting 

regulatory guidance to determine the contours of their obligations. Employers need 

a clear, comprehensible framework to allow them more easily to determine how 

their employees must be paid. Employees, likewise, would benefit from the consistency and increased compliance associated with clear rules, especially as litigation 

of an FLSA claim may take years to resolve. 

Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Woolsey, I thank you again for inviting me 

to testify. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 
29 

ENDNOTES

1 I would like to acknowledge Seyfarth Shaw attorney Jessica Schauer for her invaluable assistance in the preparation of this testimony. 2Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics (2000—2010). 

3The settlements listed in Attachment 2 include some settlements of state law wage and hour 

cases, as well as several cases in which state and federal law claims were asserted simultaneously. 
30 

4 Although the Supreme Court attempted in a 1944 case, Tennessee Coal, Iron & Co. v. 

Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590 (1944), to put a gloss on the statute by defining work in 

terms of ‘‘physical or mental exertion,’’ later cases have seemed to abandon that definition but 

have failed to provide a substitute. De Asencio v. Tyson Foods, Inc. 500 F.3d 361, 371 5The DOL’s continuous workday regulations may be found at 29 C.F.R. § 790.6. The Supreme 

Court adopted the DOL’s ‘‘continuous workday’’ approach in IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21, 

34 (2005). 6These regulations in Part 790, themselves, were written in 1947, and they have not been 

updated since 1970. 7 Examples of lawsuits concerning this question include Gandhi v. Dell Inc., No. 08-248 (W.D. 

Tex.); Heaps v. Safelite Solutions LLC, No. 10-729 (S.D. Ohio); Antoine v. KPMG Corp., No. 08- 

6415 (D.N.J.); Thigpen v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., No. 10-5589 (N.D. Ill.). 8 Compare Johnson v. RGIS Inventory Specialists, 554 F. Supp. 2d 693 (E.D. Tex. 2007) (time 

spent on optional shuttle to worksite not compensable) with Gilmer v. Alamed-Contra Costa 

Transit District, 2010 WL 289299 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (required travel from end of bus route to 

starting location at conclusion of shift compensable). 9See also DOL Opinion Letter, FLSA2006-42 (October 26, 2006), (applying exemption to information technology support specialist position), available at http://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/ 

FLSA/2006/2006—10—26—42—FLSA.htm. 10The executive exemption requires that an employee (1) is compensated on a salary basis 

at a rate of not less than $455 per week; (2) has a primary duty of ‘‘management of the enterprise in which the employee is employed or of a customarily recognized department or subdivision thereof;’’ (3) ‘‘customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees;’’ 

and (4) has the authority to hire or fire other employees or make recommendations for such 

personnel actions that are ‘‘given particular weight.’’ 29 C.F.R. § 541.100. 11While 29 C.F.R.§ 541.700(a) states that an employee’s ‘‘primary duty’’ is to be determined 

based on ‘‘all the facts in a particular case,’’ and the amount of time spent performing exempt 

work is but one factor, some courts have given that factor particular weight. See Morgan v. 

Family Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233 (11th Cir. 2008). 12 In re Novartis Wage & Hour Litig., 611 F.3d 141, 148 (2d Cir. 2010) (average salary for 

Novartis sales representatives is $91,500, and the company pays more than half a billion dollars 

a year in total compensation to its representatives); Amendola v. Brystol-Myers Squibb Co., 558 

F. Supp. 2d 459, 465 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (remarking that each of the sales representatives who had 

submitted affidavits on Brystol-Myers Squibb’s behalf earned in excess of $100,000 per year); 

Schafer-LaRose v. Eli Lilly & Co., 663 F. Supp. 2d 674 (S.D. Ind. 2009) (plaintiff sales representative earned $103,392 in 2005). 13Schaefer-LaRose v. Eli Lilly & Co., 663 F. Supp. 2d 674 (S.D. Ind. 2009) (pharmaceutical 

sales representatives qualify for both outside sales and administrative exemptions); Jirak v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., 716 F. Supp. 2d 740 (N.D. Ill. 2010) (pharmaceutical sales representatives do not qualify for outside sales or administrative exemptions). 14 In one pending case against Bank of America, some plaintiffs earned as much as $384,000 and $650,000 per year. See Brief in Opposition to Conditional Certification, Kelly v. Bank of 

America, N.A., No. 10-cv-05332 (N.D. Ill.). 15DOL Wage & Hour Division Opinion Letter FLSA 2006-31 (Sept. 8, 2006), available at 

http://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/FLSA/2006/2006—09—08—31—FLSA.htm. 16 Administrator’s Interpretation 2010-1 (Mar. 24, 2010) available at http://www.dol.gov/ 

whd/opinion/adminIntrprtn/FLSA/2010/FLSAAI2010—1.htm. 17 Although MLOs provide guidance and advice to their customers, the DOL takes the position 

that such duties are irrelevant to the administrative exemption criteria because MLOs’ customers are generally individuals rather than organizations, and thus they do not have ‘‘business 

operations’’ for the MLO to help them manage. 18See, e.g., Greenberg v. The Money Source, Inc., No. 10-01493 (E.D.N.Y); Kelly v. Bank of 

America, N.A., No. 10-05332 (N.D. Ill.); Sliger v. Prospect Mortg., LLC, No. 11-465 (E.D. Cal.); 

McCauley v. First Option Mortg., LLC, No. 10-980 (E.D. Mo.); Garcia v. Freedom Mortg. 

Corp.,——F. Supp. 2d——, 2011 WL 2311870 (D.N.J.) (denying employer’s motion for summary 

judgment on plaintiffs’ overtime claims). 19Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bahramipour v. Citigroup 

Global Markets Inc., No. 04-04440 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 16, 2007). 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 

I recognize Ms. Conti. 

STATEMENT OF JUDY CONTI, FEDERAL ADVOCACY 

COORDINATOR, NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT 

Ms. CONTI. Thank you for inviting me and the National Employment Law Project here to testify today. We are a nonprofit organization that advocates for low-wage and unemployed workers. And, 

quite simply, we are big fans of the FLSA and its promise of a fair 

day’s wage for a full day’s work. 

My varied experiences with the FLSA, counseling both large and 

small employers and workers, being an employer for 7 years, and 
31 

now as a policy advocate, leads me to one conclusion. The FLSA is 

a statute that is elegant in its simplicity and the basic guarantees 

of minimum wage, overtime protection, equal pay for equal work, 

and a prohibition on child labor. 

Yes, the nature of work has changed since its passage, but people 

haven’t. They still need decent wages. They still need protection 

from overwork. And make no mistake about it, the modern day 

sweatshop does exist and thrives. We still need to create conditions 

that spread jobs among appropriate numbers of people and, if not, 

we fuel a race to the bottom that hurts employer and employee 

alike. 

My fellow witnesses have spoken about the workers they don’t 

think should be covered by the FLSA. But let me tell you about the 

tens of millions that are and need much more vigorous enforcement. 

In 2008, NELP and two other important national allies conducted an extensive survey of over 4,000 low-wage workers in New 

York City, L.A., and Chicago. The results spanned virtually all industries and occupations, and the results were shocking. 

Sixty-eight percent of workers experienced some sort of wage and 

hour violation in the prior week. Twenty-six were not paid minimum wage, and 60 percent of them were underpaid by $1 or more, 

so it is not a small amount. Seventy-six percent of those who 

worked more than 40 hours were not paid overtime—76 percent. 

This translated to workers losing an average of $51 per week, over 

$2,600 a year, 15 percent of their yearly earnings. 

Extrapolating further, in these three cities alone, workers lost 

over $56 million in 1 week in wages they were legally entitled to 

receive. Were we to get serious about wage theft and really crack 

down on it, that could be some of the best economic stimulus our 

recovery could hope for. 

The other witnesses decry the rise of litigation and blame it on 

complexities and ambiguities in the FLSA and unscrupulous lawyers, but they ignore a few very simple facts. 

First of all, with the exception of recession years, the number of 

workers and employers has been steadily growing, and it only 

stands to reason that FLSA violations will grow as well. And, additionally, over the past few decades, both Federal and State resources directed at wage and hour enforcement have continually 

declined in opposition to the growth of the workforce. 

A series of GAO reports issued in 2009 talked about the atrocities of enforcement that were going on in the Department of Labor 

and how impossible it was, in most circumstances, to even get a 

case adequately investigated. This means two things. Low-road employers take advantage of declining enforcement and push the 

boundary’s exemptions, misclassification, and flat-out refusal to 

pay wages as far as they can go. And absent effective public employment of the FLSA, of course we see more litigation, because the 

private bar steps in and acts as the private attorneys general that 

the FLSA explicitly contemplates. 

Finally, the recession itself has driven more and more employers 

to the low road. The worst of the bunch simply cheat workers out 

of wages, knowing that the workers have few other options. And, 

desperate to compete, other normally compliant employers become 
32 

more likely to succumb to wage theft just to stay in business. And 

the rise in complaints made to DOL over the last few years amply 

demonstrates these trends. 

So what do we do? We don’t spend our time trying to exclude 

more and more workers. Instead, we get serious about enforcement. 

We pass laws to crack down on independent contractor 

misclassification. We eliminate outdated exemptions for home 

health care workers that keep this largely female and largely minority workforce trapped in poverty. We give the DOL the resources it needs to fight the wage theft that is so rampant across 

this country, and we increase penalties for those who willfully 

break the FLSA so to increase the disincentive for doing so. 

I would like to add a final note on flexibility. It is true that the 

FLSA puts some very important and necessary prescriptions on 

comp time for private-sector workers. But the other rigidities described honestly seem more to me of employers’ own creation, perhaps out of a misguided fear of litigation or maybe distrust of their 

own workers, not out of any legitimate interpretation of the FLSA. 

As much as my fellow witnesses talk about the modern technology that allows such flexibility, they don’t seem to allow their 

workforces to make much use of it. There is no reason why people 

can’t track hours when they telecommute. Lawyers do it all the 

time. If someone spends 10 to 15 minutes a day or more checking 

smartphones at home, reduce the hours they spend in the office. 

Odds are if they are checking their phones that much there is probably unspoken or spoken pressure to do so. Involve more workers 

in their own scheduling and trust them to help the employer find 

the best arrangement. 

In my 7 years as an employer, I was routinely faced with the 

same kind of challenges; and when the employee and I sat down, 

we always came up with a solution that worked for both of us and 

complied with the law. 

In summary, as much as the workforce may have changed, the 

fact is people haven’t. Workers still need to be protected against 

base instincts of low-road employers and work needs to be spread 

out among a reasonable number of people, especially in times like 

now when job creation is so important. Employers need to have 

some protection against the low-road employers that would compete and drive them out of business as well. The FLSA provides 

these protections in a way that is every bit as relevant and vital 

now as it was on the day of its enactment. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Conti follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Judith M. Conti, Federal Advocacy Coordinator, 

National Employment Law Project 

Good morning Chairman Walberg, Representative Woolsey, and members of the 

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. My name is Judith M. Conti, and I’m the 

Federal Advocacy Coordinator for the National Employment Law Project (NELP). 

NELP is grateful for the opportunity to address the Subcommittee today and share 

our views of how vitally important the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its vigorous enforcement is to today’s workforce, particularly for low-wage workers. 

NELP is a non-profit organization that for over 40 years has fought for the rights 

and needs of low-income and unemployed workers. We seek to ensure that work is 

an anchor of economic security and a ladder of economic opportunity for all working 

families. In partnership with state, local and national allies, we promote policies 
33 

and programs that create good jobs, strengthen upward mobility, enforce hard-won 

worker rights, and help unemployed workers regain their economic footing. 

One of NELP’s priority issues is enforcement of the protections of the FLSA. As 

a nation that strives to create fair and moral conditions in workplaces, under which 

both workers and employers can mutually thrive and succeed, there is no more basic 

underpinning to the social contract of employment than ‘‘a fair day’s pay for a full 

day’s work.’’ If we cannot enact and enforce basic wage and hour protections, we 

can never hope to remedy the other abuses such as discrimination and unsafe working conditions that go on in far too many workplaces. So the heart and center of 

worker protections is the FLSA and its promises of minimum wages, proper hourly 

payment, overtime premiums, and prohibitions against child labor. And as anyone 

who has ever represented low-wage workers can tell you, when employers don’t respect the basic mandates of the FLSA, other violations of labor and employment 

laws are virtually guaranteed to follow. 

My experience with the FLSA is deep and varied. I analyzed it as a law clerk to 

a judge in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. While in private practice, I counseled large and small employers on how to comply with its mandates as well as litigated on behalf of many workers, both individually and in collective actions, who were denied their rights under the FLSA. I spent seven years as 

an employer and was tasked with applying and enforcing the FLSA with regard to 

my organization’s workforce. During that same period of time, I supervised hundreds of staff and volunteer attorneys who prosecuted FLSA violations. Most recently, as a policy advocate with NELP, I have worked with our allies throughout 

the country to ensure the vigorous enforcement and defense of the FLSA. 

All of those experiences and perspectives lead me to two conclusions about the 

FLSA: 1) it’s vital for the protection of hourly workers in this country; and 2) it’s 

a relatively simple and straightforward statute and regulatory scheme to administer. So much of law is very gray in its application, yet the FLSA offers the closest 

to black-and-white that exists, at least with respect to labor and employment law. 

At the start, I also wish to make clear that I am not here to suggest that a majority or even a substantial minority of employers do not follow the FLSA. Indeed, 

given the clarity of the law, numerous employers quite willingly comply, and where 

there are judgment calls to be made, they do their best to make the right judgment. 

There is a thriving management-side bar that ably advises employers and human 

resources professionals across the country as to compliance with the FLSA and by 

and large they do a very good job. 

But we cannot ignore the fact that there are low-road employers, both big and 

small, who to varying degrees push the boundaries of the FLSA beyond reason, who 

misclassify workers as independent contractors in order to avoid their legal responsibilities under the FLSA, who wrongfully classify workers as exempt from coverage 

of the FLSA, and who flat-out do not pay their workers minimum wage and/or overtime. It is these employers, and their employees, for whom the vigorous enforcement 

of the FLSA is most important, for not only do they cheat workers out of their 

wages, but they gain an unfair competitive edge over honest employers. Neither outcome should be tolerated. 

You will likely hear the other witnesses speak today about the great lengths to 

which they go to comply with the FLSA; how much time and money it takes them 

to do so and how they could better spend those resources on other things that could 

lead to more hiring, for example. I suggest that compliance with the FLSA is not 

nearly so time consuming or expensive. More importantly, given the realities I will 

discuss below about how wide-spread violations of the most basic provisions of this 

law are, now is not the time to think about weakening the FLSA in a misguided 

notion of lessening employer burdens, but rather, to redouble our efforts to enforce 

this vital law. 

Thus, as we discuss whether the FLSA is suitable for the 21st century, we must 

all remember that the employers you have invited here today do NOT represent all 

employers out there. Rather, low-road employers who do not even follow the very 

clearest mandates of the FLSA exist in more than sufficient number. In order to 

eradicate their behavior, our task must be to look for ways to increase vigorous enforcement of the wage and hour laws that are already on the books, and to craft 

better solutions to the common schemes of wage theft that are so rampant in this 

country. If we do those things, we not only make conditions better for workers in 

this country, but we simultaneously level the playing field for high-road employers 

who strive to do the right thing by their workforces. 

Enactment and Purpose of the FLSA 

At its core, the FLSA was aimed at eliminating subpar jobs, sweatshops and the 

subcontracting (including independent contractor abuses) that were going on in the 
34 

US economy in the early 1900’s. And sadly, many of those structures and persistent 

low-wage jobs are still in existence today, making the statute as relevant and important now as it was when enacted in 1938. 

As a society, we agree that there should be a wage floor, below which employers 

cannot go,1 and overtime premiums for those who work more than 40 hours per 

week.2 These baseline laws ensure not just that we prevent people from being unfairly overworked, but that we spread out employment among workers. Indeed, as 

Justice Reed noted in 1941, job creation was at the core of the enactment of the 

overtime premium, a goal as important and laudable in the Great Depression as it 

is now in the Great Recession and its aftermath: 

By this requirement although overtime was not flatly prohibited, financial pressure was applied to spread employment to avoid the extra wage and workers were 

assured additional pay to compensate them for the burden of a workweek beyond 

the hours of the act. In a period of widespread unemployment and small profits, the 

economy inherent in avoiding extra pay was expected to have an appreciable effect 

in the distribution of extra work.3

Finally, the FLSA included essential child labor prohibitions to eliminate the particular evil of child labor in the days when young children lost their youth to long 

hours and horrific conditions in the garment and other industries.4

The FLSA is a statute that is intended to protect workers and to dissuade unfair 

competition by unscrupulous employers who flout its rules to the disadvantage of 

those employers who do play by the rules.5 As the Supreme Court stated: 

This Act seeks to eliminate substandard labor conditions, including child labor, 

on a wide scale throughout the nation. The purpose is to raise living standards. This 

purpose will fail of realization unless the Act has sufficiently broad coverage to 

eliminate in large measure from interstate commerce the competitive advantage accruing from savings in costs based upon substandard labor conditions. Otherwise 

the Act will be ineffective, and will penalize those who practice fair labor standards 

as against those who do not.6

Thus, as with all remedial statutes, the FLSA should be read broadly, and doubts 

about coverage should be construed in favor of coverage, not exemption. 

Current Conditions for Hourly Workers 

For the last few decades, anecdotal evidence indicated that with changing workforce demographics and sectoral shifts within the economy, there had been a persistent rise in the incidence of wage theft, particularly among low-wage workers, 

though they are by no means the exclusive victims of this practice.7 While the Department of Labor and its state counterparts kept records of complaints and investigations, and lawsuits alleging wage theft are matters of public record, there was 

no rigorous, methodical study documenting just how wide-spread this practice was. 

That changed in 2008 when researchers specializing in the low-wage workforce 

joined together to conduct the first-ever comprehensive survey of low paid hourly 

workers to get a precise measure of the nature and incidence of the problem. Together with researchers from the Center for Urban Economic Development at the 

University of Illinois at Chicago and the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and 

Employment, NELP surveyed more than 4000 hourly workers in low-wage industries in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Using findings generated by a 

detailed and structured questionnaire that was carefully administered and analyzed 

by surveyors, the survey produced the first valid snapshot into the nature of exploitation by unscrupulous employers, and just how widespread abuses are. The results 

of the survey, published in the 2009 report Broken Laws: Unprotected Workers, included the following key findings: 

• An astounding 68% of those surveyed experienced at least one pay-related violation in the work week preceding the survey. 

• More than one-fourth (26%) of workers were paid less than the legally required 

minimum wage in the previous work week, and 60% of these workers were underpaid by more than $1 per hour. 

• Among those working overtime (more than 40 hours in the previous work 

week), a whopping 76% were not paid the legally required overtime rate by their 

employers. 

• Nearly a quarter of workers came in early or stayed late on the job, and 70% 

of these workers received no compensation for this ‘‘off the clock’’ work. 

• Three-in-ten tipped workers surveyed were not paid the tipped worker minimum wage, and 12% of tipped workers experienced tip stealing by their employer 

or supervisor. 

• The majority of workers never complained about any of these violations for fear 

that they would experience retaliation, and indeed, of those who did complain, 43% 

did experience illegal employer retaliation. 
35 

• The cost of wage theft is enormous: The typical worker experiencing wage theft lost $51 per week out of average weekly earnings of $339. On a full-time year-round 

basis, this translates into lost annual earnings of $2,634 (15% of total earnings of 

$17,616).8

Extrapolating from these findings, the research team estimated that in these three cities alone, low-wage workers lose more than $56.4 million per week as a result of employment and labor law violations. At a moment when our economy continues to suffer from lack of demand (consumer purchasing), these findings suggest 

that one important key to economic recovery is more vigorous enforcement of wage 

and hour protections—so workers are paid what they earn, and can pump money 

back into their local economics. It goes without saying that wage theft of this magnitude also contributes to the phenomenon of working poverty. 

The 2008 survey was broad, encompassing twelve different industries: apparel 

and textile manufacturing; personal and repair services; private households; retail 

and drug stores; grocery stores; security, building and grounds services; food and 

furniture manufacturing, transportation and warehousing; restaurants and hotels; 

residential construction; home health care; social assistance and education; and 

other industries such as finance and other health care. Workers from employers of 

all sizes were part of the survey, and while employers with less than 100 employees 

had markedly higher rates of violations of basic wage and hour laws, employers 

with more than 100 employees still had shockingly high rates of violations.9

A few other important findings are worth noting: 

• Women are more likely to be victims of wage theft than men are.10

• Minimum wage violations are most common in three industries: apparel and 

textile manufacturing; personal and repair services; and private households.11

• In each of the following occupations, more than 50% of the workers surveyed 

experienced overtime violations:12

• Child care workers (90.2%) 

• Stock/office clerks & cashiers (86%) 

• Home health care workers (82.7%) 

• Beauty/dry cleaning & general repair workers (81.9%) 

• Car wash workers/ parking attendants & drivers (77.9%) 

• Waiters/cafeteria workers/ bartenders (77.9%) 

• Retail salespersons and tellers (76.2%) 

• Building services & grounds workers (71.2%) 

• Sewing & garment workers (69.9%) 

• Cooks, dishwashers & food preparers (67.8%) 

• General construction (66.1%) 

• Cashiers (58.8%) 

As this brief overview makes clear, the most basic and bright-line rules of the 

FLSA are being routinely ignored with impunity. These violations are not occurring 

because of complex determinations of whether or not someone is an exempt professional or a legitimate independent contractor. Rather, they are flagrant abuses of 

very straight-forward and relevant provisions of our basic federal and state wage 

and hour laws. 

These findings highlight just how important the FLSA still is and how we need 

to dramatically increase our enforcement of wage and hour laws throughout the 

country, across every industry and occupation.13

Decline of Enforcement of the FLSA and State Wage and Hour Laws 

Over the same period that worker advocates have sounded alarms over the rise 

of wage theft, employers and their advocates have decried an increase in the rise 

of lawsuits claiming FLSA violations. The sheer increase in the number of employers and workers is obviously responsible for some of each of these trends, but declining enforcement by the Department of Labor and its state counterparts also is a significant factor in both trends. In the face of such decline, the private bar increasingly stepped into the enforcement void, where the low-hanging fruit of such basic 

violations of law was too obvious to ignore. And they’ve had their work cut out for 

them in recent years as the financial pressures of the recession that have driven 

low-road employers to engage in even more wage theft, and have pressured other 

employers who are barely hanging on to conform to those illegal practices simply 

to survive. 

Indeed, USDOL has seen a recent uptick in complaints and investigations, which 

they have been better able to handle because of recent increases to Wage and Hour 

Division (WHD) staff to get it closer to pre-2001 staffing levels.14 In FY 2010, WHD 

registered 31,824 complaints and closed 26,486 cases. As the economy has worsened, 

the number of complaints registered with WHD has continued to rise: 

• FY 2008—23,845 
36 

• FY 2009—26,311 

• FY 2010—31,824 

Of particular concern is the rise in the number minimum wage complaints where 

violations were found. For example, in FY 2009, WHD found violations in 9,176 

minimum wage cases. In comparison, in FY 2010, that number increased to 

10,529.15

USDOL’s WHD has a very full plate. It has responsibility not just for enforcing 

the FLSA, but also the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Migrant and 

Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (AWPA or MSPA), the Service Contract Act, and the Davis-Bacon Act, among others. Between FY 1975 to FY 2004, 

the number of WHD investigators declined from 921 to 788 in spite of the fact that 

the Division was given responsibility for the FMLA during the same time, the covered US workforce grew by 55% and the number of covered employers grew by 

112%. These 788 investigators were responsible for protecting the rights of over 135 

million workers in over 7.3 million establishments, a staggering average of 245,000 

workers for each investigator.16

Statistics from the Solicitor’s Office from FY 1992 to FY 2008 paint a similar picture. During that time, the total staff of the Solicitor’s Office (attorneys, paralegals, 

secretaries, etc.) declined by 25% from 786 to 590.17 During this same period of declining staff, the Solicitor’s Office gained responsibility for litigation under both the 

FMLA, and under substantial amendments to the Mine Safety and Health Act 

(known as the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, or MINER 

Act) in 2006.18 As recently as FY 1987, the Solicitor’s Office filed 705 FLSA lawsuits, representing 48% of all FLSA lawsuits filed.19 In FY 2007, the Solicitor’s office 

filed only 151 FLSA lawsuits, representing only 2% of all FLSA lawsuits filed.20

A current snapshot of Wage and Hour offices throughout the country is similarly 

bleak. According to a 2010 survey conducted by Policy Matters Ohio, 43 states and 

the District of Columbia also have wage and hour investigatory staff—a total of 

659.5 investigators across the country, responsible to ensure compliance on behalf 

of 96.9 million workers covered by state wage and hour laws. This means there is 

approximately one investigator for every 146,000 workers, but it should be noted 

that these investigators have responsibility for many laws other than basic wage 

and hour laws, and that distribution of these staff within and across states is neither equal nor proportionate. Some states like New York and California have relatively robust cadres of investigators, while others devote paltry to non-existent resources wage and hour enforcement. For example, Florida has no staff whatsoever 

to enforce its wage and hour laws. Indiana has only one investigator for the entire 

state.21 Virginia has four investigators and a grand total of one attorney who prosecutes wage and hour violations in the state. None of this is meant to criticize any 

of these state agencies; rather, it points to how important it is to maintain a strong 

federal statute with an agency that’s adequately resourced to enforce it. 

Flexibility for the Modern Workforce 

Some employers complain that they feel restricted by the FLSA—that the law 

hampers them in providing the flexibility that the modern workforce and worker demand. This is a fallacy. The fact is that the FLSA provides ample opportunity for 

flexibility on terms that both benefit and protect workers as well as employers. 

A frequent complaint is that under the FLSA, employers are not allowed to offer 

workers compensatory time in lieu of overtime pay. This is an overstatement of the 

law that ignores the existing ability to give compensatory time off within the same 

workweek as overtime was performed. Moreover, it neglects to take into account the 

very important reasons that the ability to offer compensatory time is appropriately 

circumscribed in the private sector. I testified before this Subcommittee about this 

very issue on March 6, 2002, and the substance of my comments remains unchanged. I ask that my previous testimony be resubmitted for the record.22

The issue of workplace flexibility has become a very pressing and well-discussed 

issue in recent years. Recent publications have focused on all the ways in which 

modern technology allows employers to be increasingly flexible with their 

workforces, even low-wage workforces. It is a fact that there are certain jobs that 

require precise hours at a precise location, such as a receptionist, and there’s little 

if anything that can be done to alter those realities. It is equally true that sometimes, jobs demand unscheduled overtime and employees must comply, and employers must pay the premium. But there are increasing options and opportunities for 

creativity that employers can take advantage of for the mutual benefit of themselves 

and their employees. The full reports that contain these suggestions are cited 

below,23 and I submit them as part of the official record. A brief summary of ideas 

follows: 
37 

• For workforces that have variable scheduling from week to week, or month to 

month, employers can use scheduling software that allows them to ensure that their 

needs are covered, and allows workers to have meaningful input into what hours 

and shifts they will work; 

• Allow telecommuting to the maximum extent possible; 

• Allow work-sharing among teams of employees; 

• Allow workers to shift their hours to those that accommodate their personal 

needs (such as child-care pick up) whenever possible; 

• Allow workers to opt for compressed work-weeks whenever possible; 

• Allow workers to swap shifts with ease as long as the employer needs are met; 

• Allow a reasonable amount of paid sick leave; 

• Implement leave banks at the workplace to accommodate emergency needs of 

workers; 

• Assign overtime work on a voluntary basis to the maximum extent possible; 

• Cross train employees to do different jobs so that there’s more choice in accepting overtime and accommodating workers’ needs for time off. 

None of these practices is prohibited by the FLSA. Of course, they require employers to engage and trust their workers, but in my seven years of experience as an 

employer, I learned one lesson loud and clear—the more you trust your employees 

and allow them to balance their personal and professional needs, the harder they 

work for you and the more trustworthy they become. There may be a few along the 

way who abuse the trust, and they should be dealt with appropriately. But the 

many should not suffer because of the scant few, and the goodwill and hard work 

that flows from such a relationship is rewarding for both the employer and the employees. 

Necessary Modernizations to the FLSA and its Implementing Regulations 

Although the FLSA’s current protections should remain untouched and vigorously 

enforced, it is true that there are some improvements that could be made, which 

would make the statutory scheme more sensible, aid in enforcement, and respond 

to popular ways to evade the FLSA’s mandates, as well as other mandates of federal 

and state labor, employment and tax law. 

First, NELP enthusiastically supports The Employee Misclassification Act 

(EMPA) that was introduced in Congress last term by Congresswoman Woolsey and 

Senator Sherrod Brown. This bill would amend the FLSA to require employers to 

keep records of independent contractors engaged to work, provide notice to those 

workers of their status as an ‘‘employee’’ or ‘‘independent contractor,’’ require the 

USDOL to create an ‘‘employee rights website,’’ and impose a penalty for employer 

misclassification of employees. 

If enacted, EMPA would be an important step toward greater transparency in employment relationships. If workers know about their employment classification and 

the impacts of that status, they will be better prepared to report any violations. 

USDOL will be better equipped to determine whether there is compliance if the employers maintain the basic records of their contractors. Indeed, doing so would certainly be a ‘‘best practice’’ for a smart business, so that it could keep track of payments and the labor or services that were the basis for those payments. Equally important, these practices would also help law-abiding employers that play by the 

rules but that are undercut by misclassifying firms. They would likewise provide the 

information needed to recover much-needed tax and payroll revenues lost when 

workers are misclassified as independent contractors. Finally, should an employer 

be subjected to investigation or litigation, it will be more readily able to defend and 

justify its practices, or minimize time spent assessing damages in the case of erroneous classification, if these records are kept.24

Second, in its last two budgets, the Administration sought $25 million for the 

USDOL’s misclassification initiative to target misclassification with additional enforcement personnel and competitive grants to state unemployment insurance programs to address independent contractor misclassification. These efforts, which 

would ultimately yield much needed revenue to state and federal treasuries, not to 

mention much needed dollars to workers’ pockets, should be supported. 

Third, if we wanted to get serious about wage theft, we could also consider 

amending the FLSA to increase the penalties against employers who steal wages 

from their employees. Presently, the FLSA allows workers to collect double back 

wages for two years, three years in the case of ‘‘willful’’ violations. Many states have 

mandated treble damages and longer statutes of limitations, which are very effective strategies to reduce wage theft, made it much less profitable for employers to 

engage in these practice, and have proven a successful tool in speeding settlement 

in cases where violations are clear-cut. 
38 

Fourth, the USDOL also should update the regulations governing the so-called 

‘‘white collar’’ exemptions. Specifically, the salary threshold for exemption is only 

$455 per week, which translates into a full-time salary of $23,660 per year, an unreasonably low figure today. The salary threshold should be set at a sufficiently 

high level that it realistically reflects expected earnings of a professional and it 

should be indexed to inflation on a yearly basis. In addition, as written, the current 

regulations allow workers to be considered exempt professionals when, in fact, they 

spend only extremely small amounts of their time doing job tasks that truly qualify 

as exempt work. A worker should not be considered an exempt professional unless 

the majority of his or her time is spent on tasks that require independent judgment 

and discretion.25

Finally, Congress should pass the Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act of 

2011 (H.R. 2341), introduced last month by Representative Linda T. Sanchez. This 

bill would remedy a serious flaw in current DOL regulations, that harken back to 

a time when home care workers were usually friends or relatives of an ailing adult, 

who spent but a few hours a day helping them with menial tasks around the house. 

As the population has aged and the home care industry has grown, the role of home 

care aides has also changed significantly. Home health care workers today are 

trained and devoted professionals, who deliver skilled health care to many of our 

nations’ seniors and ailing adults in a highly professional manner. They work long 

hours, often performing back-breaking work, and are invested with significant responsibility. Whatever the merits of their original exclusion from minimum wage 

and overtime protections, this archaic exemption has failed to keep up with the evolution of the industry and the workers who have built. It is long past time for Congress to remedy this inequity by extending minimum wage and overtime protections 

to home health care workers. The USDOL can also remedy this injustice with appropriate regulations. It is on the Department’s Regulatory Agenda and NELP urges 

swift issuance of proposed regulations. 

Conclusion 

The FLSA is a vitally important law, designed to protect hourly workers from substandard wages, unduly long hours, and child labor abuses. It promotes an equitable 

distribution of work among workers, and it protects employers from being undercut by low-road employers who seek unfair competitive advantages. While some applications of exemptions require a nuanced analysis, by and large, the protections 

accorded by the FLSA are clear and simple to understand and administer. Improvements should be made to protect against growing abuses of low-wage workers and 

those misclassified as independent contractors, but current protections should not 

and must not be diluted nor enforcement weakened. To do so might seem at first 

blush to be beneficial to our nation’s employers, but in fact, that harm it will do 

to workers and high-road employers is something we cannot and should not tolerate. 

ENDNOTES

1 29 U.S.C. §206. 

2 Id. at §207. 

3Overnight Motor Transport. V. Missel, 316 U.S. 527, 577-78 (1941). 

4 29 U.S.C. §212. 

5 Citicorp Indus. Credit, Inc. v. Brock, 483 U.S. 27, 36 (1987); see also Tony & Susan Alamo 

Found. v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U.S. 290, 299 (1985) (‘‘*P+ayment of substandard wages would 

undoubtedly give petitioners and similar organizations an advantage over their competitors. It 

is exactly this kind of ‘unfair method of competition’ that the Act was intended to prevent.’’ (citation omitted)); Gilbreath v. Cutter Biological, Inc., 931 F.2d 1320, 1332, 1334 (9th Cir.1991) 

(Nelson, J., dissenting) (discussing the FLSA’s effort to protect law-abiding employers against 

unfair competition from businesses paying substandard wages). 6 Roland Elec. Co. v. Walling, 326 U.S. 657, 669-70 (1946). 

7 ‘‘Wage theft’’ refers to a range of practices that reflect employers’ failure to pay workers the 

wages they have earned. These include the failure or refusal to pay some or all of wages promised, requiring workers to put in unpaid time off the clock, denial of minimum wage and overtime pay, and misclassification of employees as independent contractors. 8 Annette Bernhardt, et al. Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and 

Labor Laws in America’s Cities (2009), http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Justice/ 

BrokenLawsPresentation2010.pdf?nocdn=1. 9For those workers who were employed by a company with more than 100 employees, 15.2% 

experienced minimum wage violations, 52.8% were victims of overtime violations, 64.9% were 

made to work off the clock, and 63.8% had a meal break violation. Those who worked for smaller 

companies experienced minimum wage violations at a rate of 28.5%, overtime violations at a 

rate of 82.4%, off the clock work at 73.6%, and meal break violations at a rate of 73.5%. Id. 

at 30. 10 Id. at 42. 11 Id. at 31. 12 Id. at 34. 
39 

13For an excellent summary of the abuses rampant in agricultural labor, please see ‘‘Weeding 

Out Abuses: Recommendations by Farmworker Justice and Oxfam America.: http:// 

www.farmworkerjustice.org/files/immigration-labor/weeding-out-abuses.pdf. 14See http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/presentation/1.htm (slide 3 of the presentation). WHD 

began hiring new investigators in the summer of 2009, and, by the end of FY 2010, WHD had 

hired over 300 new investigators, taking the agency to a total of 1,035 investigators. 15http://ogesdw.dol.gov/. 16 Brennan Center for Justice, Economic Policy Brief, No. 3, September 2005, available on-line 

at www.brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download—file—8423.pdf. The 788 investigators in 

FY 2004 were only part of Wage-Hour’s total staff, which numbered 1,442 employees; the other 

staff included supervisors, analysts, technicians, and administrative employees. (Department of 

Labor FY 2009 Performance Budget, www.dol.gov/dol/budget/2009/PDF/CBJ-2009-V2-03.pdf, pp. 

ESA-35 and ESA-36.) 17 U.S. Department of Labor Budget Submission to Congress for Fiscal Year 1993; ‘‘Legal 

Services’’ in volume 3 of the U.S. Department of Labor’s FY 2008 Detailed Budget Documentation, pp. DM-26 to DM-28, available at www.dol.gov/dol/budget/2008/PDF/CRJ-V3-02.pdf. Although the Solicitor’s office had 590 employees in January 2007, it had funding to pay for only 

551 employees. Id. at DM-28. 18The Solicitor’s Office litigation responsibilities encompass not just FLSA cases, but many 

other laws as well, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), the Mine Safety 

and Health Act (MSH Act), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and the 

Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA). 19 Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Judicial Business of the United States 

Courts, 1987 Annual Report, Table C-2 (Washington, D.C., 1987). The FLSA authorizes lawsuits 

not only by DOL handled by Solicitor’s Office attorneys, but also by aggrieved employees represented by private attorneys. Until 1987, nearly 50 percent, and in most years far more, of all 

FLSA lawsuits were handled by DOL attorneys, but more recently employee lawsuits have represented a much higher percentage of all FLSA cases. 20 Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Judicial Business of the United States 

Courts, 2007 Annual Report, Table C-2 (Washington, D.C., 2007), available at http:// 

www.uscourts.gov/judbus2007/appendices/c2.pdf. 21 Investigating Wage Theft: A Survey of the States. A Report from Policy Matters Ohio. Zach 

Schiller and Sarah DeCarlo, November 2010. http://www.policymattersohio.org/pdf/ 

InvestigatingWageTheft2010.pdf. 22http://www.dcejc.org/app/docs/Judy—Testimony%5B1%5D.pdf. 23http://www.worklifelaw.org/pubs/ImprovingWork-LifeFit.pdf; http:// 

workplaceflexibility2010.org/images/uploads/whatsnew/ 

Flexible%20Workplace%20Solutions%20for%20Low-Wage%20Hourly%20Workers.pdf. 24 A complementary bill, the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability and Consistency Act of 

2009 (s. 2882) was introduced by Senator Kerry. This bill would amend the Internal Revenue 

Code’s safe harbor exemption for employers who misclassify employees as independent contractors, which currently allows workers to pretty much misclassify with near impunity with no consequences. See 26 U.S.C. 7436, It would also, in appropriate cases, allow the IRS to issue guidance on the subject and collect unpaid taxes owed the government. These reforms are vital to 

combatting misclassification abuses. 25http://nelp.3cdn.net/112fc23c9ce271ff77—ppm6bnkya.pdf. 

APPENDIX

Snapshot of Current and Recent Wage and Hour Suits 

Brought on Behalf of Workers 

The following is by no means an exhaustive or methodical survey of current wage 

and hour lawsuits, but it is a representative sampling of what attorneys throughout 

the United States are litigating or have litigated. These examples come from the 

Just Pay group that NELP convenes. This ‘‘virtual table’’ of wage and hour practitioners and worker advocates includes attorneys in private practice, legal services 

organizations, government agencies, and policy organizations across the country, all 

devoted to the fair and vigorous enforcement of the nation’s and states’ wage and 

hour laws. 

1. A large national employer makes its employees incur most of its business expenses as a condition of employment. The business expenses regularly result in the 

employees being paid less than the minimum wage. (There is no claim that the 

workers are independent contractors.) In addition to the expense shifting, branches 

were shaving time records to reduce overtime liability. The corporate offices knew 

it was happening, but decided not to audit the offices unless a complaint was raised 

and pressed by employees. The case was recently certified as a national collective 

action and a class action in 14 states that allow for wage and hour class actions. 

2. Workers were regularly required to work more than 100 hours a week and paid 

under the fluctuating workweek rule. The inspectors were actually paid a declining 

hourly wage, i.e., the more they worked, the lower their hourly pay, a result directly 

contrary to the policy of the FLSA. Due to litigation in federal court, the industry 

has changed its practices. 

3. A fish market/restaurant in a major metropolitan area that employs 30-40 

workers requires many employees to work 15 hours a day, five days a week. It pays 
40 

straight time for all hours worked. In order to appear as if it is complying with the 

law, the employer issued paychecks that have a lower hourly rate than the employees are actually paid, and a few ‘‘overtime’’ hours at 1.5 times the incorrect rate. 

The remainder of the pay is in cash, which also means that the employer is avoiding 

paying social security/medicare taxes, and is evading most of its obligation to the 

state and federal unemployment funds. 

4. An individual was employed to take care of disabled people who need 24-hour 

care. She would start at 3 pm at the home where the disabled clients lived, and 

was required to care for them until 8 am the next morning. The company for which 

she worked advertised on its website that it provided ‘‘round-the-clock, 24-hour care’’ 

to its clients, and received state and federal funds to pay for their care. However, 

the employee was only paid for the 3 pm to 9 pm and 6 am to 8 am hours, even 

though she was on-duty the entire time, had to take care of people during the night 

and did not have separate sleeping quarters. 

5. At the start of the day, before they are ‘‘on the clock’’ and being paid, call center 

workers who are employed by a national IT company are required to boot up their 

computers, initialize programs, and read internal emails regarding services/client offers and other business so that they are ready to take calls at ‘‘the start of the 

shift,’’ when they begin being paid. This practice means that employees usually lose 

15+ minutes of pay each work day. 

6. A group of construction workers are required to report to the company’s warehouse/yard at the start of each day. They pick up orders and then load trucks with 

equipment and supplies they will need when they drive out into the field to work. 

The company does not pay them for that time, for the time that it takes to drive 

the truck and materials to the worksite in the morning, for the time to drive the 

truck back to the yard in the afternoon. As a result, the workers are performing 

work ‘‘off the clock’’ for up to two hours per day. 

7. One employer, when the minimum wage increased, would pay its employees the 

higher wage and then require the workers to repay the difference between the higher rate and the previous rate. 

8. A restaurant made its workers sign a ‘‘VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT’’ to work 

only for tips and pledge that they never expected nor would they accept a penny 

from the employer as compensation. The agreement also had the workers waive all 

rights to any legal recourse. 

9. A large group of construction/home repair workers with limited English proficiency were paid with checks that had the word ‘‘VOID’’ written in the subject line 

on the bottom. 

10. Over 100 men who worked as ‘‘chicken catchers’’ for Perdue Farms on the 

Eastern Shore of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. These men, using equipment 

provided solely by Perdue Farms, and transported in Perdue Farms vehicles, travel 

from chicken farm to chicken farm, scooping up full grown chickens in their bare 

hands, and loading them into Perdue cages and trucks so they can be transported 

to processing plants for slaughter. In the early 1990’s, Perdue, and other major 

chicken processors, decided to misclassify these workers as independent contractors, 

all so that they could increase their profits at the expense of the workers, who had 

previously received overtime, health and retirement benefits, and the protections of 

workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation laws. A federal judge ruled 

that this scheme was willfully illegal and ordered millions of dollars in back-pay to 

these workers, who thanks to intervention from the Federal Department of Labor, 

are now all, on a nationwide basis, properly classified as employees and receive all 

the pay and protections to which they are entitled. Perdue never appealed the case 

and settled for the full measure of damages, as established by plaintiffs’ expert witness. 

11. Restaurant workers who earn tips, particularly delivery workers, are required 

to work 6 days per week, between 10 and 12 hours per day without breaks. They 

are paid a monthly salary of $300-$600, which equates to an hourly salary of between $1.30 and $2.00 per hour. Although they earn tips, they are sometimes required to give a portion of their tips to non-tipped workers. They also must spend 

a portion of their day doing non-tipped work (e.g., cleaning bathrooms, stocking supplies). The delivery workers also must buy and repair their own bikes, which further 

reduces their take home earnings. 

12. Restaurant and Grocery baggers who are not paid any wage at all, but are 

required to work for tips only. In the case of grocery baggers, tip income may be 

$2.00 per hour. 

13. Low-road employers often pay employees under two names so that they can 

avoid paying overtime. Some create false records of work hours to show the DOL 

in case of an investigation. Others pay workers partly in cash and partly by check, 

with checks showing an hourly rate that is more than the workers actually get paid 
41 

(e.g., showing that someone worked 20 hours and got paid $5.00 even though the 

employee worked 60). 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 

Mr. Hara, I recognize you for your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF NOBUMICHI HARA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

HUMAN CAPITAL, GOODWILL OF CENTRAL ARIZONA, ON BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 

Mr. HARA. Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member 

Woolsey, and distinguished members. My name is Nobu Hara, Senior Vice President of Human Capital for Goodwill Industries of 

Central Arizona, one of 165 autonomous Goodwills. I appear before 

you today on behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee 

to discuss the relevance of the Fair Labor Standards Act to the 

21st century workplace. We believe the FLSA prevents employers 

from providing the workplace flexibility that nonexempt employees 

want and need. 

In 2010, Goodwill of Central Arizona served over 30,000 individuals with barriers to employment by assisting job seekers through 

10 career centers, job fairs, and by providing workforce development of jobs skills training, work experience, and case-managed assistance through a variety of programs. In the same year, we 

placed 9,200 of those we served into jobs. 

To be sure, the FLSA has been a cornerstone of employment and 

labor law since 1938. The FLSA was enacted to ensure an adequate 

standard of living for working Americans, and it covers virtually all 

recognizable businesses. But the FLSA reflects the realities of the 

industrial workplace of the ’30s, not the workplace of 2011. It has 

remained relatively unchanged in the more than 70 years since its 

enactment, despite the dramatic changes that have occurred in the 

workplace. Most notably, advances in information technology have 

transformed how businesses operate, communicate, and make decisions. 

The outmoded FLSA presents challenges for organizations wanting to implement flexible work arrangements for their employees. 

Flexible work arrangements can alter the time and place that work 

is conducted to better meet the work life balance needs of workers. 

For example, I was recently approached by a group of Goodwill 

employees who wanted to work a biweekly, compressed work week. 

Under the FLSA, employers are permitted to allow a nonexempt 

employee to work four 10-hour days for a total of 40 hours in a 

week without the employer incurring any overtime obligations. Our 

employees proposed working five 9-hour days on the first week, for 

a total of 45 hours, and 35 hours the second week, having alternate 

Fridays off. Working 10 hours in 1 day was too physically difficult 

for them and did not comport to their work family obligations. 

Since they are nonexempt employees, however, their proposed 

schedule would require Goodwill to pay overtime for the additional 

hours over 40 hours in the first week. 
42 

Another example involves requests received by nonexempt employees to make up time and pay for missed work because of family 

obligations, illnesses, and other reasons. Most of the time the 

make-up work involves a second week to provide enough latitude 

to complete the work. That again involves working more than 40 

hours in a week and thus incurring overtime pay. As you might 

imagine, Mr. Chairman, we operate on a tight budget and could not 

grant the request. 

Keep in mind that several case have overtime requirements for 

work beyond an 8-hour day, which further complicates employer attempts at flexible work arrangements. 

To promote workplace flexibility under current law, SHRM has 

formed a multiyear partnership with the Families and Work Institute. The primary goal of this partnership is to educate HR professionals about the importance of effective and flexible workplaces 

and facilitate employers adopting flexible work arrangements for 

their employees. 

Mr. Chairman, one component of the partnership is called When 

Work Works to promote effective workplace policies. This initiative 

is a Statewide initiative in Michigan, where the Michigan Council 

of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Detroit 

Regional Chamber serve as our community partners. 

As part of the initiative, Motawi Tileworks, Incorporated, based 

in Ann Arbor, in your congressional District, was awarded a Sloan 

Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. Motawi 

won the Sloan Award for giving their employees great freedom in 

determining their schedules. 

Many employers would like to provide the workplace flexibility 

that both employees and employers desire in current and future 

work environments. SHRM believes the FLSA hinders the ability 

of employers to provide such flexibility to their nonexempt employees and, in its current form, decreases morale, work engagement, 

and work life balance. 

We look forward to working with you to modernize the outmoded 

FLSA in a manner that balances the essence of the law with the 

changing needs of the workforce. 

Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Hara follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Nobumichi Hara, Senior Vice President, Human 

Capital, Goodwill Industries of Central Arizona, on Behalf of the Society 

for Human Resource Management 

Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Woolsey, and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee, my name is Nobumichi Hara, Senior Vice President of Human Capital for Goodwill Industries of Central Arizona. I appear before you today on behalf 

of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), of which I am a member. 

On behalf of our approximately 260,000 members in over 140 countries, I thank you 

for this opportunity to appear before the Committee to discuss the relevance of the 

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to the 21st century workplace. 

SHRM is the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management. 

The Society serves the needs of HR professionals and advances the interests of the 

HR profession. Founded in 1948, SHRM has more than 575 affiliated chapters within the United States and subsidiary offices in China and India. 

Goodwill Industries of Central Arizona is one of 163 autonomous Goodwills served 

by a member services organization, Goodwill Industries International. In 2010, 

Goodwill of Central Arizona provided career services to over 30,000 individuals by 

assisting job seekers through career centers, job fairs, and by providing job skills 

training, work experience, and case managed programs in vocational rehabilitation. 
43 

1 29 U.S.C. 203(s)(1)(A) 

Those programs were administered under the Work Incentives Improvement Act, 

Senior Community Service Employment Program, Summer Youth Work Experience 

Program, and other government grants and contracts. 

In essence, our mission is about workforce development. Last year, we placed 

9,200 people in jobs in the greater Phoenix, Yuma and Prescott communities. In carrying out our mission we employ nearly 2,000 employees; the majority of whom are 

people with barriers to employment. We offer a competitive pay and compensation 

package to our employees and offer flexible work options, including flexible scheduling, telecommuting, and compressed work programs. Our employees work very 

hard with one goal in mind: putting people to work. 

In my testimony, I will explain the key issues posed by the FLSA to our nation’s 

employers and employees; demonstrate how the FLSA prohibits employers from providing workplace flexibility that today’s employees want; and share SHRM’s efforts 

to promote these benefits to employees. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act 

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) has been a cornerstone of employment and labor law since 1938. The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, 

recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting full-time and part-time 

workers in the private sector and in federal, state, and local governments. The 

FLSA was enacted to ensure an adequate standard of living for all Americans by 

guaranteeing the payment of a minimum wage and overtime for hours worked in 

excess of 40 in a workweek. 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) administers and 

enforces the FLSA with respect to private employers and state and local government 

employers. Special rules apply to state and local government employment involving 

fire protection and law enforcement activities, volunteer services, and compensatory 

time off instead of pay in overtime situations. 

Virtually all organizations are subject to the FLSA. A covered enterprise under 

the FLSA is any organization that ‘‘has employees engaged in commerce or in the 

production of goods for commerce, or that has employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods or materials that have been moved in or produced for commerce by any person; and has $500,000 in annual gross volume of sales; or engaged 

in the operation of a hospital, a preschool, an elementary or secondary school, or 

an institution of higher education.’’ 1

Employees of firms that are not covered enterprises under the FLSA still may be 

subject to its minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, or child labor provisions 

if they are individually engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods 

for interstate commerce. 

Employee Classification Determinations under the FLSA 

The FLSA provides exemptions from both the overtime pay and minimum wage 

provisions of the Act. Employers and HR professionals use discretion and independent judgment to determine whether employees should be classified as exempt 

or non-exempt and, thus, whether they qualify for the overtime pay provisions or 

the minimum wage provisions of the FLSA. Generally speaking, classification of employees as either exempt or non-exempt is made on whether the employee is paid 

on a salary basis with a fixed rate of pay, and their duties and responsibilities. 

The FLSA provides exemptions from both the overtime pay and minimum wage 

provisions for: 

1. Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and 

academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools), outside 

sales employees, and employees in certain computer-related occupations (as defined 

in Department of Labor regulations) known as the ‘‘White Collar’’ provisions. 

2. Employees of certain seasonal amusement or recreational establishments, employees of certain small newspapers, seamen employed on foreign vessels, employees 

engaged in fishing operations, and employees engaged in newspaper delivery. 

3. Farm workers employed by anyone who used no more than 500 ‘‘man-days’’ of 

farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year. 

4. Casual babysitters and persons employed as companions to the elderly or infirm. 

In addition, the FLSA provides additional exemptions from only its overtime pay 

provisions for the following positions: 

1. Certain commissioned employees of retail or service establishments; auto, 

truck, trailer, farm implement, boat, or aircraft sales-workers, or parts-clerks and 

mechanics servicing autos, trucks, or farm implements, who are employed by non- 
44 

2Society for Human Resource Management (2008). Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. 

manufacturing establishments primarily engaged in selling these items to ultimate 

purchasers. 

2. Employees of railroads and air carriers, taxi drivers, certain employees of motor 

carriers, seamen on American vessels, and local delivery employees paid on approved trip rate plans. 

3. Announcers, news editors, and chief engineers of certain non-metropolitan 

broadcasting stations. 

4. Domestic service workers living in the employer’s residence. 

5. Employees of motion picture theaters. 

6. Farm workers. 

The FLSA also provides partial exemptions from only overtime pay in the following instances: 

1. For employees engaged in certain operations involving agricultural commodities 

and to employees of certain bulk petroleum distributors. 

2. Hospitals and residential care establishments may adopt, by agreement with 

their employees, a 14-day work period instead of the usual seven-day workweek, if 

the employees are paid at least time-and-one-half their regular rates for hours 

worked over eight in a day or 80 in a 14-day work period, whichever is the greater 

number of overtime hours. 

3. For employees who lack a high school diploma, or who have not attained the 

educational level of the 8th grade, who can be required to spend up to 10 hours in 

a workweek engaged in remedial reading or training in other basic skills without 

receiving time-and-one-half overtime pay for these hours. However, the employees 

must receive their normal wages for hours spent in such training and the training 

must not be job-specific. 

4. Public fire departments and police departments may establish a work period 

ranging from seven to 28 days in which overtime need only be paid after a specified 

number of hours in each work period.2

As shown by the above descriptions of the various types of FLSA exemptions, classification decisions for many positions are not black-and-white. It can be easy for 

an employer to mistakenly misclassify employees as exempt who, in reality, should 

be non-exempt, or vice-versa. 

Despite the ambiguity of many employment situations, the stakes in ‘‘improperly’’ 

classifying employees are high. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) frequently audits employers and penalizes those that misclassify employees, awarding up to three 

years of back pay for overtime for those employees, plus attorneys’ fees, if applicable. Predictably, audit judgments can be subjective, since two reasonable people can 

disagree on a position’s proper classification. Employers also face the threat of classaction lawsuits challenging their classification decisions. 

FLSA—a 20th Century Statute 

The FLSA was enacted toward the end of the Great Depression and reflects the 

realities of the industrial workplace of the 1930s, not the workplace of the 21st century. The Act itself and its implementing regulations have remained relatively unchanged in the more than 70 years since its enactment, despite the dramatic 

changes that have occurred in where, when and how work is done. Information technology and advances in communication have clearly transformed how businesses operate, communicate and make decisions. Cell phones, tablets, BlackBerries, and 

other technology allow many employees to perform job duties when and where they 

choose. 

As a result, minimum wage policies and overtime exemption requirements which 

may have been appropriate in the 1930s are out of step with current knowledge and 

a technology-based economy, creating unnecessary regulatory burdens for employers 

and restricting employers’ ability to be flexible and address contemporary employee 

needs. 

We believe the FLSA makes it difficult if not impossible in many instances for 

employers to provide workplace flexibility to millions of non-exempt employees. 

While non-exempt employees can receive time-and-a-half pay, they cannot be afforded the same workplace flexibility benefits as exempt employees. 

Workplace Flexibility and the Fair Labor Standards Act 

The increased diversity and complexity within the American workforce—combined 

with global competition in a 24/7 economy—suggests the need for more ‘‘workplace 

flexibility.’’ C-suite executives, for example, say the biggest threat to their organiza-
45 

3 Company of the Future Survey (2010). Society for Human Resource Management and the 

Economist Intelligence Unit. 4 Challenges Facing Organizations and HR in the Next 10 Years (2010). Society for Human 

Resource Management. 5 National Study of the Changing Workforce (2008). Families and Work Institute. 

tions’ success is attracting and retaining top talent.3 Human resource professionals 

believe the best way to attract and retain the best people is to provide workplace 

flexibility.4 Moreover, a large majority of employees—87 percent—report that flexibility in their jobs would be ‘‘extremely’’ or ‘‘very’’ important in deciding whether to 

take a new job.5

To be clear, workplace flexibility is defined as giving employees some level of control over how, when and where work gets done. Altering how, when and where work 

gets done in today’s modern workplace, however, also raises compliance concerns 

with the FLSA. 

Although both employers and employees identify the need for greater flexibility, 

the outdated FLSA presents challenges for organizations wanting to implement 

flexible work arrangements (FWAs). Flexible work arrangements alter the time and/ 

or place that work is conducted on a regular basis; must work for both the employer 

and employee; and must be voluntary for employees. Employers, however, encounter 

challenges under the FLSA in offering some FWAs. 

For example, I was recently approached by a group of Goodwill employees in Central Arizona who wanted to work a bi-weekly compressed workweek. Under the 

FLSA, employers are permitted to allow a non-exempt employee to work four, 10- 

hour days Monday through Thursday for a total of 40 hours in a week, and take 

every Friday off without the employer incurring any overtime obligations. However, 

our employees proposed working a nine-hour day Monday through Friday of the first 

week for a total of 45 hours, and work three, nine-hour days and one eight-hour 

in the second week and take Friday off, because working 10 hours was physically 

too difficult for them and did not comport to their work-family obligations. This 

schedule, however, would require the employer to pay overtime for the additional 

hours over 40 hours in the first week. In addition, several states have daily overtime requirements for more than an eight-hour day, further complicating employer 

efforts to provide this type of flexible work arrangement. 

Another example of a FWA that raises compliance concerns under the FLSA is 

a Results-Oriented Work Environment or (ROWE). Very simply a ROWE allows employees to set their own schedules to produce required results. Providing this type 

of flexible option to non-exempt employees may put the employer at risk of overtime 

obligations under the FLSA and also raises unfair labor practice concerns under the 

National Labor Relations Act. 

The statute also prohibits private sector employers from offering non-exempt employees time off in lieu of compensation, even though all public sector employees are 

offered this type of flexibility. We have non-exempt employees who request makeup time when they miss work to deal with illness, family matters, or personal matters. Newer employees and employees who have used up their sick and/or vacation 

benefits cannot receive pay for missed time. However, if they cannot make-up their 

missed time reasonably within the same work week, we are unable to meet their 

requested need. If we allow employees to make-up their time into their following 

week, we will incur overtime pay as the time they work in that second week would 

be in addition to their normal 40-hour work. As a non-profit organization, we have 

to control our expenses in order to maximize value derived from donated goods to 

pay for programs and growth. 

I have also faced a challenge under the FLSA with individuals classified as nonexempt inside sales employees in our call center. Formerly, these employees were 

classified as outside sales employees who were exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements and frequently were on the road making sales calls to customers. Because of the advances in technology, these employees are hardly ever required to 

visit a customer in person and do most of their sales work through e-mail, webbased demonstrations, the phone and other electronic mediums. 

At INVESTools Inc., an investor education products and services company, these 

employees’ compensation is based on an hourly rate of pay and a commission that 

is designed to give them an incentive for closing sales of sophisticated products and 

services ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 in price. These employees often want to 

work long hours to earn these commissions, some bringing home over $100,000 per 

year. However, we were required to pay overtime based on the weighted average 

of their hourly pay and commissions, which would significantly increase their hourly 

rate, making their overtime pay fiscally unaffordable to my organization. As a result, we have had to limit their working time or pay overtime. That curtailed their 
46 

motivation, increased expenses and decreased profitability, and limited our ability 

to remain successful. 

These are a few examples of how the Fair Labor Standards Act fails to recognize 

the changing characteristics of the workforce. 

A 21st Century Workplace Flexibility Policy 

As noted above, a growing number of employers recognize the benefits of workplace flexibility and are implementing effective and flexible workplace practices as 

a key business strategy. At the same time, complex, and sometimes overlapping federal, state and local laws do little to support employer creativity and innovation in 

responding to the flexibility needs of the 21st century workforce. That is why SHRM 

has advocated a comprehensive workplace flexibility policy that, for the first time, 

responds to the diverse needs of employees and employers and reflects different 

work environments, union representation, industries and organizational size. 

SHRM released a set of ‘‘Principles for a 21st Century Workplace Flexibility Policy’’ in 2009 to help guide policymakers in the development of public policy that 

meets the needs of both employees and employers. I have included a copy of these 

principles at the end of my written statement (Appendix A). 

Workplace Flexibility Educational Efforts 

In addition to advocating for a new approach to workplace flexibility public policy, 

SHRM has also engaged in a significant effort to educate HR professionals and their 

organizations about the importance of effective and flexible workplaces. On February 1, 2011, SHRM formed a multi-year partnership with the Families and Work 

Institute (FWI), the preeminent work-family think-tank known for rigorous research 

on workplace flexibility issues. 

The primary goal of this partnership is to transform the way employers view and 

adopt workplace flexibility by combining the research and expertise of a widely respected organization specializing in workplace effectiveness with the influence and 

reach of the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management. By 

highlighting strategies that enable people to do their best work, the partnership promotes practical, research-based knowledge that helps employers create effective and 

flexible workplaces that fit the 21st century workforce and ensures a new competitive advantage for organizations. 

Although FWI is an independent non-advocacy organization that does not take positions on these matters, and the position of SHRM should not be considered reflective of any position or opinion of FWI, I’d like to briefly mention one of the key elements of the SHRM/FWI partnership, the When Work Works program, because it 

seeks to educate and showcase employers who are meeting the needs of our 21st 

century workforce. When Work Works is a nationwide initiative to bring research 

on workplace effectiveness and flexibility into community and business practice. 

Since its inception in 2005, When Work Works has partnered with an ever-expanding cohort of communities from around the country to: 

1. Share rigorous research and employer best practices on workplace effectiveness 

and flexibility. 

2. Recognize exemplary employers through the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, 

3. Inspire positive change so that increasing numbers of employers understand 

how flexibility can benefit both business and employees, and use it as a tool to create more effective workplaces. 

As a proud resident of Arizona, I am particularly pleased that When Work Works 

is a statewide initiative in my state under the direction of the Chandler Chamber 

of Commerce. In fact, 40 Arizona employers are highlighted in the SHRM/FWI publication, ‘‘2011 Guide to Bold New Ideas.’’ as recipients of the coveted Sloan Award. 

Mr. Chairman, I would also note that When Work Works is a statewide initiative 

in Michigan, where the Michigan Council of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Detroit Regional Chamber serve as our community partners. In 

fact, Sloan Award winner Motawi Tileworks, Inc. (www.motawi.com) is located in 

Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. The 22 employees that are hand-crafting tiles 

from this Ann Arbor shop have great freedom in determining their schedules. No 

one cares when they start, stop or schedule their breaks, and overtime is forbidden. 

This is just one example of innovative workplace strategies we are uncovering 

through the When Work Works initiative. 

Conclusion 

The Fair Labor Standards Act is a cornerstone among America’s workplace statutes. SHRM educates its membership and their organizations about all wage and 

hour issues under the FLSA. But the FLSA was crafted in a bygone era, and it 
47 

should be re-evaluated to ensure it still encourages employers to hire, grow, and better meet the needs of their employees. 

We believe the FLSA hinders employer’s ability to provide the flexibility that millions of non-exempt employees want. SHRM and its members, who are located in 

every congressional district in the nation, are committed to working with this subcommittee and other members of Congress to modernize the outmoded FLSA in a 

manner that balances the needs of both employees and employers and does not 

produce unnecessary and counterproductive requirements. 

Now more than ever, there is a compelling need for workplace flexibility that benefits both employers and employees. Going forward, SHRM will continue to highlight workplace flexibility as a key business imperative, conduct and share research 

with HR professionals on how effective and flexible workplaces can benefit the bottom-line, and provide information and resources that will help employers successfully implement workplace strategies that enable employees to manage their worklife fit. 

Thank you. I welcome your questions. 

APPENDIX A

Principles for a 21st Century Workplace Flexibility Policy 

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) believes the United States 

must have a 21st century workplace flexibility policy that meets the needs of both 

employees and employers. It should enable employees to balance their work and personal needs while providing predictability and stability to employers. Most importantly, any policy must encourage—not discourage—the creation of quality new jobs. 

Rather than a one-size-fits-all government approach, where federal and state laws 

often conflict and compliance is determined under regulatory silos, SHRM advocates 

a comprehensive workplace flexibility policy that, for the first time, responds to the 

diverse needs of employees and employers and reflects different work environments, 

union representation, industries and organizational size. 

For a 21st century workplace flexibility policy to be effective, SHRM believes that 

all employers should be encouraged to provide paid leave for illness, vacation, and 

personal days to accommodate the needs of employees and their family members. 

In return, employers who choose to provide paid leave would be considered to have 

satisfied federal, state and local leave requirements. In addition, the policy must 

meet the following principles: 

Shared Needs—Workplace flexibility policies must meet the needs of both employees and employers. Rather than an inflexible government-imposed mandate, policies 

governing employee leave should be designed to encourage employers to offer a paid 

leave program (i.e., illness, vacation, personal days or a ‘‘paid time off’’ bank) that 

meets baseline standards to qualify for a statutorily defined ‘‘safe harbor.’’ For example, SHRM envisions a ‘‘safe harbor’’ standard where employers voluntarily provide a specified number of paid leave days for employees to use for any purpose, 

consistent with the employer’s policies or collective bargaining agreements. In exchange for providing paid leave, employers would satisfy current and future federal, 

state and local leave requirements. A federal policy should: 

• Provide certainty, predictability and accountability for employees and employers. 

• Encourage employers to offer paid leave under a uniform and coordinated set 

of rules that would replace and simplify the confusing—and often conflicting—existing patchwork of regulations. 

• Create administrative and compliance incentives for employers who offer paid 

leave by offering them a safe harbor standard that would facilitate compliance and 

save on administrative costs. 

• Allow for different work environments, union representation, industries and organizational size. 

• Permit employers that voluntarily meet safe harbor leave standards to satisfy 

federal, state and local leave requirements. 

Employee Leave—Employers should be encouraged to voluntarily provide paid 

leave to help employees meet work and personal life obligations through the safe 

harbor leave standard. A federal policy should: 

• Encourage employers to offer employees with some level of paid leave that 

meets minimum eligibility requirements as allowed under the employer’s safe harbor plan. 

• Allow the employee to use the leave for illness, vacation, personal and family 

needs. 

• Require employers to create a plan document, made available to all eligible employees, that fulfills the requirements of the safe harbor. 
48 

• Require the employer to attest to the U.S. Department of Labor that the plan 

meets the safe harbor requirements. 

Flexibility—A federal workplace leave policy should encourage maximum flexibility for both employees and employers. A federal policy should: 

• Permit the leave requirement to be satisfied by following the policies and parameters of an employer plan or collective bargaining agreement, where applicable, 

consistent with the safe harbor provisions. 

• Provide employers with predictability and stability in workforce operations. 

• Provide employees with the predictability and stability necessary to meet personal needs. 

Scalability—A federal workplace leave policy must avoid a mandated one-size-fitsall approach and instead recognize that paid leave offerings should accommodate 

the increasing diversity in workforce needs and environments. A federal policy 

should: 

• Allow leave benefits to be scaled to the number of employees at an organization; 

the organization’s type of operations; talent and staffing availability; market and 

competitive forces; and collective bargaining arrangements. 

• Provide pro-rated leave benefits to full- and part-time employees as applicable 

under the employer plan, which is tailored to the specific workforce needs and consistent with the safe harbor. 

Flexible Work Options—Employees and employers can benefit from a public policy 

that meets the diverse needs of the workplace in supporting and encouraging flexible work options such as telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, job sharing, 

and compressed or reduced schedules. Federal statutes that impede these offerings 

should be updated to provide employers and employees with maximum flexibility to 

balance work and personal needs. A federal policy should: 

• Amend federal law to allow employees to balance work and family needs 

through flexible work options such as telecommuting, flextime, part-time, job sharing and compressed or reduced schedules. 

• Permit employees to choose either earning compensatory time off for work hours 

beyond the established workweek, or overtime wages. 

• Clarify federal law to strengthen existing leave statutes to ensure they work for 

both employees and employers. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Hara; and, on behalf of 

Motawi, thank you and SHRM for recognizing their excellent efforts in Ann Arbor. 

Without objection, I will recognize myself for questions if that is 

okay, now that it is the proper time, with fear as well. I think I 

was concerned that I may be called for a subpoena vote in another 

committee down the hall. So let me begin questioning here. 

Mr. Alfred, just in reviewing some of what you stated in the statistics about FLSA lawsuits and the alarming rise over the last 

decade, you indicated that, from 2000 to 2010, the number of lawsuits has risen more than 300 percent, with more than 6,000 lawsuits filed last year alone. You indicated in your testimony, even 

more alarming, is that about 40 percent of these suits are brought 

as collective actions, sometimes involving tens of thousands of current and former employees. What would you indicate to be the root 

problem behind the astonishing growth of this legal action? 

Mr. ALFRED. Two things, Chairman Walberg. 

First, the ambiguities and inconsistencies in the statute itself 

and the regulations, the Department of Labor regulations. Those 

ambiguities and inconsistencies provide fodder for enterprising 

plaintiffs’ lawyers who seek to bring large cases, not necessarily because, unfortunately, of the rights that they seek to vindicate of 

employees but because of the financial motive of the settlements 

that derive from those lawsuits. 

And that brings us to the second point. These lawsuits are tremendously lucrative. They pose risks, first of all, to employers that 
49 

employers can’t assess. As Mr. MacDonald testified, employers 

looking at a risk and a potential exposure in large lawsuits when 

they are brought oftentimes make a business determination that, 

rather than take the risk and spend the large sums of money to 

defend these cases, compounded by what is often even more burdensome, which is the internal time that has to be spent by companies that are sued, they choose to settle these cases for some percentage of the total risk or exposure. 

Those settlements result in large windfalls, oftentimes, for plaintiffs counsel. That, unfortunately, has fueled and been the cause of 

many of these lawsuits. 

So I think if you take the inconsistencies and ambiguities, which, 

as I also testified, is much worse when applying an old law to a 

new economy, add that to the financial incentives of plaintiffs’ 

counsel in those cases, you have a very dangerous mix and you see 

the rise in the litigation that is shown on my graph. 

Chairman WALBERG. I assume with those incentives the precedents are set as well that increase the incentive. 

Mr. ALFRED. Well, the precedents of the settlements. The court 

precedents are all over the place; and that, again, is part of the inconsistent treatment of these laws. 

Chairman WALBERG. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. MacDonald, in light of the increase in FLSA lawsuits, what 

modernizations do you think could be made to FLSA in order to 

bring them in line with the 21st century—as you indicated, it is 

way out of date—reducing confusion, lawsuits, and also, in the 

process, of empowering employees? 

Mr. MACDONALD. Chairman Walberg, I think that it is pretty 

clear that the standards by which overtime pay is supposed to be 

administered are clear, so that is not an issue here. I want to try 

to make that clarification up front. 

The issue that we are looking for is how do you define some of 

the work that is now being done that the law did not anticipate 60, 

70, even 20 years ago? The ability to use technology has dramatically changed the workplace. So, for instance, in my industry, the 

computer exemption piece is clear for one role. We think those roles 

have to be expanded now, so that the roles are more clarified, that 

we can decide where that work gets done. 

Secondly, the concept of de minimis. While I don’t have a silver 

bullet on a definition of de minimis, we would like to work with 

both sides to figure out how we can define that. De minimis work, 

does it mean that if somebody opens their BlackBerry—for argument’s sake—to check their assistant’s calendar or the supervisor’s 

calendar and begin to do some work and then start to go to work, 

is that portal-to-portal compensation? Those types of things have 

not been had. 

Inside versus outside sales. The same person in IBM can be selling a software product on the outside and another person could be 

in the inside. One is nonexempt and one is exempt. It doesn’t make 

sense. Yet they are selling the same product. 

It is those types of things that a matter of definition of clarification will help employers ultimately decide what to do. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 
50 

I see my time has ended. I recognize the ranking member for her 

questions. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, for the record, I think we all—I need to tell 

everybody that my professional background before I was elected to 

Congress in 1992 was that of being a human resources manager for 

an electronic startup company, very high-tech company in the telecommunications industry in Marin County, California, where we 

started with 13 employees. My employee number was six, and I 

was there for 10 years. And when I left, we had over 800 employees. So over that 10-year period, you know, I hired, set policy, and 

certainly had to deal with FLSA. Well, we never had one suit, ever, 

on any level, actually, that had to do with employer-employee relations. 

And then I started my own HR consulting firm and helped my 

client companies learn how to treat their employees and not worry 

about going around the law but understanding what the law is. 

And we always had flexible schedules. And that was in 1969. That 

was before people even talked about flexible schedules. We knew 

how to do it because we wanted to. If there is a will, there is a way. 

You can take care of your employees without taking advantage of 

them. And we knew the difference between exempt and nonexempt, 

believe me. 

So I am going to ask you a question, Ms. Conti. Mr. Alfred uses 

Walmart as one of his examples of this poor corporation that gets 

picked on in the courts and by their employees. Well, Walmart is 

currently facing more than 80 lawsuits at various stages of the 

legal process. And, after an audit, some of the methods that have 

been cited in the lawsuit used by the Walmart managers that 

Walmart is challenging in the courts is to hold down labor costs 

that would include forcing employees to work off the clock, requiring workers to skip lunch and rest breaks, and manipulating time 

and wage records. Just for example. 

And then, of course, they have settled four of their cases between 

2004 and 2010. So you know they were guilty or they never would 

have settled. 

So could you tell us if you think that that is unfairly picking on 

Walmart and how you see this? 

Ms. CONTI. Well, in all candor, there is nobody in the workers’ 

rights movement that would ever complain about unfairly picking 

on Walmart. The wage practices are well known. They are creative. 

There have been many court decisions very clearly stating that the 

practices they have engaged in have been illegal. 

And in spite of the settlements that they have had to pay, in 

spite of the judgments they have had to pay, they keep having 

record profits year after year. Their CEOs, their high-ranking officials keep making wonderful salaries that grow each year, while 

their workforce’s salaries don’t really grow each year. So it is nothing that I am going to feel too sorry about right now. 

For the handful of multimillion dollar settlements that my fellow 

witness has talked about, he also ignores that the vast, vast, vast 

majority of these cases are for workers that maybe, in the case of 

low-wage workers, are complaining over hundreds or maybe mere 

thousands of dollars and need the remedies of the FLSA so that 

they can eat, they can pay their mortgage, they can get medicine 
51 

for their kids and send them to the doctors when they are sick. And 

we are overlooking that very important purpose of the FLSA here. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So after almost 80 years of existence, could you 

very quickly tell us what is work so that everybody is not confused? 

What is work? 

Ms. CONTI. What is work? Work is the labor that you produce for 

your employer. It is the time you spend doing that which is for 

your employer’s benefit. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. 

And, also, how does exempt/nonexempt differ? If you can say that 

quickly. 

Ms. CONTI. Sure. Exempt workers are generally people who are 

considered some degree of a white-collar professional, who exercise 

independent judgment and discretion, who don’t simply follow a 

well-set guideline of procedures and steps, who have additional 

education and training that means that they are more likely to be 

a professional, and that make a certain sufficiently high salary that 

indicates that they are professional as well. There are a host of 

other exemptions in various fields, but the main exemptions that 

are usually the source of much debate are the so-called white-collar 

professional exemptions. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 

Recognize chairman of the full committee, the member from Minnesota, Mr. Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank the witnesses for their testimony, for being with us today, 

help us to look into to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which has 

been discussed is indeed an old Act. And we are exploring its application in, not in 1969, which was a very good year, as I recall, the 

year I graduated college, but in 2011, ’12 and ’13, going forward. 

The gentlelady from California, the ranking member, said, quote, 

we know Walmart was guilty or they never would have settled, 

close quote. 

Mr. Alfred, is it your observation that you only settle if you are 

guilty, or are there other factors here that might be taken? Can 

you talk about that? You mentioned that there were settlements 

because it is less costly as a business decision. Could you expand 

on that, please? 

Mr. ALFRED. Yes, thank you. 

With all due respect to Ranking Member Woolsey, that statement is inaccurate in my experience and in common sense. 

If one were to examine the way a collective action works under 

the Fair Labor Standards Act, one would quickly see that the risks 

to employers may be enormous. That doesn’t mean that employers 

did anything wrong. Oftentimes, the analysis is that they did not. 

The problem is, in a collective action, the case may be what is 

called conditionally certified at the very beginning of the lawsuit 

with a very low burden. Almost all cases are. That then triggers 

legal mechanisms that allow the hundreds, thousands, and more 

people to join the case. 

The litigation continues; and as the litigation continues, depending on what court you are in, depending on what judge you are before who is going to be interpreting the ambiguous terms in the 
52 

statute, such as the administrative exemption, whether or not an 

employee is exercising the degree of discretion and independent 

judgment required to meet the standards of that exemption, and 

also know under what rule book we are playing, depending on 

where the Department of Labor is at the time. 

The Department of Labor has recently changed its view through 

amicus briefs filed in cases on what exactly it thinks the proper degree of discretion and independent judgment is. So when you look 

at the threat of these lawsuits and you understand the risks of 

going to trial, decisions are made on a business level to make payments that are dramatic compromises perhaps, but they do not represent what Ms. Woolsey terms guilt or innocence. They are business decisions and hard business decisions. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you. 

So, in short, it is cheaper, it is less expensive for the business 

to settle, rather than to carry the case forward and take a risk, depending upon the interpretation in a particular court or a particular jury. So it is a business decision, not necessarily in any way 

an admission of guilt. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. KLINE. I would be happy to yield. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I did make a mistake. I don’t know that they are guilty. You 

never, as a member, ever supposed to admit you made an error. 

But because the decision is sealed and so there is no way for me 

to know. 

Mr. KLINE. Exactly. Reclaiming my time. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. But you have to know what the four—what 

they paid: $86 million, $65 million, $55 million, $40 million. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you. 

Reclaiming my time, I saw those numbers as well; and who 

knows how many hundreds of millions might have been at stake. 

I want to—my time is rapidly disappearing here, and I want to 

get at the issue of flexible time. We have had multiple testimony 

on that; and Ms. Conti had testified that, within the same work 

week, there was already flexibility and comp time could be provided. But in the public sector, as we know, it is greatly prized. Because you can accrue comp time. You can choose to work in December and take time in August, for example. 

Could you, Mr. MacDonald—my time has expired, but I am going 

to beg the indulgence of the chair because of the little colloquy that 

we had. Could you comment on the difficulty in providing compensatory time, flexible time, and the impact that has on the workplace today in 2011? 

Mr. MACDONALD. If we are recognizing the time issue that you 

have stated, this is exactly what is wrong, for instance, in the municipalities and government public sector, is the accrual of all of 

this is liability that sits there forever. And, frankly, that is not 

something that we want to accrue on our books. We have no problem paying people. That is not the issue. The issue is trying to get 

to decide where they should be classified. 

So creating systems of having to account for all that time and 

when they can get it, we have people who are having problems get-
53 

ting their vacation time; and to then talk about having further accrual just doesn’t make sense in the business liability. 

In addition to that, how do you accrue for that? If that time is 

carried over for 2 or 3 years, at what rate is it carried to? 

So it is an administrative burden that is cost ineffective. 

Chairman WALBERG. I recognize Ms. Hirono for her questioning. 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I note that two of our testifiers really railed against the plaintiff’s bar, plaintiff’s lawyers; and I take it, Mr. Alfred, that you are 

speaking for the defense side of the table. 

Mr. ALFRED. I am today, although at the beginning of my career 

I was a plaintiff’s lawyer as well. 

Ms. HIRONO. I am sure that if we had a plaintiff’s lawyer representing some of these workers in class-action suits we probably 

would have heard a different narrative, and I wish that they were 

present here so that we could hear both sides. 

With regard to the 7,000 lawsuits and the explosion of lawsuits, 

as Ms. Conti mentioned, that many of these are—a lot of these are 

not class-action lawsuits being settled for millions and millions of 

dollars, that they are individual claims, are they not, Ms. Conti. 

Ms. CONTI. They are. 

Ms. HIRONO. I don’t know what the average of settlement value 

or—— 

Ms. CONTI. There are no statistics. I can tell you from my 15 

years as a plaintiff’s attorney that the cases that we handled, by 

and large—when I was doing strictly legal services on behalf of 

low-wage workers, the settlements and verdicts usually ranged 

somewhere between $500 to $3,000 or $4,000. There were some 

that were more substantial, but not much more. 

In a collective action that I worked on against Purdue Farms 

that had misclassified its chicken catchers as independent contractors, the average plaintiff received somewhere between $5,000 and 

$10,000. There were some that received as much as $25,000, but 

that was because they were working over 80 hours a week and not 

being compensated any overtime for it. 

Ms. HIRONO. I think, considering the FLSA was really intended 

to provide a support for really the low-wage workers, the people 

who otherwise would be facing a really difficult job situation visa-vis their employers, I think that we should keep in mind that the 

vast majority of these complaints are coming from individual complainants. 

And I should mention as an aside, it is getting a lot tougher with 

this U.S. Supreme Court to pursue class action claims. In the most 

recent decision being the Walmart decision wherein they decided 

that, practically out of the blue, in my opinion, that suddenly common questions of law and fact that affect the class would be a lot 

tougher hurdle for the class to pursue its claims. So it is really getting a lot tougher. 

And I would like to focus this committee on the fact that most 

of the complaints are coming from individual workers. 

I have a question for Mr. MacDonald. Because you do make some 

recommendations in changing the current FLSA. You call it a job 

killer, and I take it that your changes would really allow you to ex-
54 

empt more workers. That would be an accurate characterization, 

wouldn’t it? 

Mr. MACDONALD. I think what the statement is is that we believe that the clarifications would be more reflective of their training and their income. My fellow panelists talked about white-collar 

workers earning substantial income. 

Ms. HIRONO. Which would mean basically that there would be 

more exempt workers and, therefore, the requirement to pay overtime would not apply. So you could have a scenario where, if we 

accept your suggestion, which basically would allow more workers 

to be more exempt, that employers won’t have to pay overtime, and 

it therefore could actually be a job killer. 

Mr. MACDONALD. What I would give you as a perfect example of 

that is, when we reclassified 7,000 people who were earning between $77,000 and $150,000, they took a 15-percent reduction in 

their base to offset the overtime that they might work. Thirty-four 

percent of those people in the next year earned less money. So it 

wasn’t a matter of saving money. It is just—because we would have 

glady kept the pace as it was as exempt. 

Those persons also when it is argued about—— 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you. That is one scenario, and I think we can 

envision other scenarios where we are going to open the doors to 

a lot of workers being exempt and therefore overtime not being 

paid, and it could very well result in a lot of employers requiring 

these exempt workers to work much longer hours without hiring 

more people to do that work. So it could actually have a job-killing 

impact. 

Mr. MACDONALD. This is not France and trying to reduce work 

hours to 35 hours. 

Ms. HIRONO. We know that the corporations who are making a 

lot of money these days and holding on to literally billions and trillions of dollars and they are not creating jobs. That is because we 

don’t have demand. I would say that is one of the major reasons. 

And if we are going to start paying people less or hiring fewer people because they are exempt, I don’t think we are really helping 

our economy. 

And I did want to note that since we don’t have—I don’t feel as 

though the panel is balanced, except for Ms. Conti, to speak up for 

the underlying reasons for this law. I don’t want to—it is not as 

if I am picking on you all, but I really think if we are going to do 

something as dramatic as changing the FLSA that we need to keep 

in mind what the underlying purposes of this law is, and we should 

deal with facts that relate to the millions of people who are being 

impacted by the kind of changes that you are proposing. 

I yield back. 

Chairman WALBERG. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I will recognize the fact that the minority always has an opportunity to request the witness that they would desire, and I am glad 

that you have chosen well. 

I recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich, for his questioning. 

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would just like to go down the line for a brief question to each 

witness. 
55 

The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 right now, Mr. MacDonald. 

Do you believe it should be decreased, stay the same, or raised. 

Mr. MACDONALD. I am not quite sure of the nature of the question. 

Mr. KUCINICH. Okay. Next person. Mr. Alfred. 

Mr. ALFRED. I am from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

where it is $8. 

Mr. KUCINICH. So should the Federal minimum wage be raised? 

Mr. ALFRED. I don’t mean to be smart about this—— 

Mr. KUCINICH. Okay. Next question. You don’t want to be smart. 

We will take the next question. 

Ms. Conti. 

Ms. CONTI. I emphatically believe the minimum wage should be 

higher. If we had it restored to its historical rate in the 1960s when 

it was as high as it was relative to inflation and wages, it would 

be between $9.50 and $10 an hour right now. I think that is the 

right place to set it, and it should be indexed to inflation after that 

so it goes up every year. 

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. 

Mr. Hara. 

Mr. HARA. I don’t really have an opinion on that. 

Mr. KUCINICH. Okay. Thank you. That is all I wanted to know. 

Here is a very clear example here. When you are talking about 

someone who is advocating their cause of economic justice, you can 

be very clear. But we can’t get a straight answer out of any of the 

witnesses, who have excellent backgrounds, on really a very simple 

question: What do you think the minimum wage should be? That 

question is as clear as anything: What should the minimum wage 

be? 

Now, let’s look at something right here, because this is a good 

opportunity to make an important point. JP Morgan, one of the 

largest financial institutions, just issued a report pointing out that 

corporate profit margins have reached levels not seen in decades, 

that U.S. labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to 

both company sales and U.S. GDP, that reductions in wages and 

benefits—this is JP Morgan—reduction in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in corporate profit margins. 

Why is U.S. labor compensation so low, the report asks. Well, the 

analysts at JP Morgan state that the lingering excess labor supply 

from the recession is one reason, but the 2 billion people in Asia 

joining the global labor force over the last two decades is another. 

They talk about wages for production workers and emerging markets remain well below U.S. levels. 

The information helps to put the subject matter of today’s hearing in perspective. Because the unemployment rate is not just a 

number. It is not just that 9.2 percent are unemployed. It is not 

just that 14 million or more are unemployed and that several million more are underemployed. You have to look at the unemployment rates are hitting African Americans 16.2 percent, Hispanics 

11.8 percent, teenagers 24.5 percent. 

So you have to look at this economic context that we are in. The 

rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and the 
56 

middle class is getting destroyed because they cannot hold on to a 

good wage level. 

So you have the representatives here of these big financial interests. They are not satisfied. They want more profits, even if it 

means driving down wages or making workers work time and a 

half and not getting paid for it. 

I want to thank the witnesses for being here, because your presence here proves what is wrong in this country today and that is 

that you are here advocating for a financial system that is manifestly unfair. And I appreciate you being here to be able to help 

clarify that and your unwillingness to be able to answer a simple 

question. 

But it is very clear from these market reports that you have 

wages and benefits going down while profits are going up. And 

there is a direct relationship between that, and we ought to start 

thinking about what that means about our country. When you have 

corporations able to make larger profits because they keep knocking down workers’ wages and benefits, that is not right; and, frankly, it is not even American. 

I yield back. 

Chairman WALBERG. I thank the gentleman. 

I recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Bucshon. 

Mr. BUCSHON. I will yield back my time to the chairman of the 

subcommittee, Mr. Walberg. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. That is a pleasant surprise. 

Mr. BUCSHON. I yield my time. 

Chairman WALBERG. I appreciate that. 

Let me return to Mr. MacDonald. 

In Michigan, unemployment has just risen not far, because it 

didn’t go far down, but risen to 10.3 percent again this month. We 

haven’t seen it below 10 percent for years in Michigan. We are not 

seeing any relief really in sight. 

The finding task of this Congress is to get our country back to 

work, not to establish social policy that destroys jobs and destroys 

incentives and makes it more difficult for employers to hire, to 

make a profit, which ultimately expands the opportunity for all of 

us, as I understand, and I would respectfully disagree with my colleague from Ohio. 

The purpose of the private sector is to create an economy, and 

we should make sure that a playing field is in place to do that. 

As one of the country’s major employers, has FLSA prevented 

you from hiring employees from around the United States. 

Mr. MACDONALD. Let me give you a real-life example; and I 

think it would be helpful to my panelists if—Ms. Conti—to think 

about how we could use enforcement even better for the Fair Labor 

Standards Act. 

IBM about 21⁄2 half years ago announced that we were putting 

an additional 1,000 jobs in Iowa. These were high-paying jobs. 

These are significant jobs. They were technology jobs. These are 

people who have bachelor’s degrees and great training like that. 

We put those thousand jobs in Iowa, and we have been subjected 

to two audits already with no findings. 

I really have to question, you know, when I think about the reality of some of the abuses that were suggested by Ms. Conti. I un-
57 

derstand those. I am very aware of those myself in smaller industries. But here we are creating jobs in the United States, and no 

good deed goes unpunished. Right away, we have to be subjected 

to the audits. And we did it right. But it is complicated, and there 

is a lack of clarification, and we are now erring on the side of nonexempt if we—even keeping the employment here. 

I mean, this is a global economy. We can talk about the fact that 

other countries are doing other things. The reality of it is we didn’t 

have the global economy in 1938 or 1960. We have it now. It is a 

reality. Competitors are coming from everywhere. It is just not the 

U.S. competitors competing against each other. It is a global competitor. 

We are going to think about our business in the context of labor 

costs. We are going to make investments where investments are 

appropriate to make. 

We made investments in technology of $5 billion last year. That 

had enormous impact around the world and for this economy. But 

we have to make investments where we can be cost competitive. 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you. 

I would turn to Mr. Hara as well. I mean, Goodwill is filled with 

goodwill and the employment that you provide to a specific group 

of employees and the services that come from that are unique, special, and important. Has FLSA prevented you from hiring employees from around the United States? 

Mr. HARA. Well, we don’t hire from throughout the United 

States. We are located in central Arizona. 

However, we are challenged by the current way the FLSA is 

structured. Because one of the issues that we are dealing with, especially because our employee base is predominantly individuals 

with barriers to employment, they have special needs. We have a 

lot of single families, we have a lot of broken families, we have individuals that have special needs that are all hourly employees 

working for us. We have approximately 2,000 employees working 

for our particular Goodwill. 

One of the biggest concerns that we have is that when employees 

come to us asking for special privileges like taking time off and 

then being able to make that up because they can’t afford not to 

go without pay, that is when we start running into problems with 

flexibility. I understand that there are times where you can make 

everything work within the 40-hour work week and you can work 

some extra hours 1 day and not the next because you are trying 

to take care of things. But, oftentimes, that is not the case, and it 

runs into the following week. And when we run into overtime 

issues, it really taxes our expenses, because we are on a very tight 

budget. 

So some of the provisions on the Fair Labor Standards Act as 

they relate to flexibility is an area that we really need some help 

on. And, for example, public employees have the opportunity to 

trade time for pay situations. And, right now, the private sector, 

which we are one of, does not have that opportunity. 

So those are some of the areas that I think can be worked on, 

without taking away the essence of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 

to improve. 
58 

Chairman WALBERG. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Bucshon, 

for yielding your time. 

I would recognize Mr. Payne for any questions that you might 

have of the witnesses. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

My time is not that good right now. However, I would just like 

to say I think that the issue is certainly very important. 

I will not ask any questions at this time, but what I would say 

is that I think that we need to take a look at the policies. In many 

instances, we have to streamline them. Of course, we also have to 

be careful that we don’t start to set the clock back like we have 

been hearing in some of our hearings. We have made a lot of 

progress in this country, and I hope that we don’t start to regress. 

But what I will do at this time is to yield to the ranking member, 

Ms. Woolsey, my time. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MacDonald, I have a question for you about your statement 

of how FLSA has sent jobs overseas. Could you give us an example 

of how IBM—just even only one—or where and how IBM has had 

to send jobs overseas as a result of FLSA regulations. 

Mr. MACDONALD. Well, as an enterprise that is managed on a 

global basis, we look at where we are going to make investments 

and we look at where those investments can yield. We represent 

shareholders. That is what the capitalistic system is about. And 

when we look at those labor costs, we think about it in terms of 

how we will be competitive against competitors that do not exist on 

these shores. So our ability to make those decisions is driven off 

of the opportunity to control costs—— 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So it would be okay with you that we move to the 

very lowest rung of the ladder in order to pay our workers, because 

the overseas companies don’t pay overtime, don’t have wage and 

hour laws, don’t have—actually, don’t even have environmental 

laws. I mean, so is that okay with you? Is that what we want to 

do here in the United States? 

Mr. MACDONALD. That is what you suggested. I said—I never 

said anything to the contrary. IBM has very high standards of ethical and moral behavior around the world. 

If you want to paint IBM was a sweatshop—— 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I don’t. I am talking to you about why having a 

Fair Labor Standards Act would send jobs overseas. 

Mr. MACDONALD. Because I said to you right now I cannot have 

clarification about what people are classified. I need a level of definition about making decisions around cost competitiveness. That is 

business reality. That is not theory. That is not philosophy. It is 

how you make decisions in business. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. I wish I was still an H.R. consultant. I 

would love to work with you. All of my clients knew what it was. 

Mr. MACDONALD. I would have to know what your rates were. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. You could afford me. Believe me. I was not expensive. 

Mr. MACDONALD. I don’t know. It is labor cost competitiveness. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, Mr. Hara, aren’t there exceptions for workers with disabilities so their hours—I mean, for Goodwill? Can’t 

you make decisions for your disabled workers? 
59 

Mr. HARA. Well, actually, all of our employees fall under the 

same rules as they relate to the Fair Labor Standards Act. And unless you may be talking about a different set of rules that is not 

a part of this discussion, I don’t think, but—— 

Ms. WOOLSEY. You are using your employees at Goodwill as your 

example, not just employees in general through the association. 

Mr. HARA. I am sorry. Could you repeat that? 

Ms. WOOLSEY. You were using your Goodwill employees as an example. 

Mr. HARA. Yes. Our employees are still bound by the Fair Labor 

Standards Act. If they work overtime, we are required to pay overtime. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Overtime. But we do make exemptions for disabled workers under the Americans for Disability Act. 

Mr. PAYNE. Can I reclaim my time? 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes, you may. 

Mr. PAYNE. Mr. MacDonald, in the little time I have left, you 

were saying about competitiveness and we just pay too much. What 

is your prognostication of America 50 years from now? Is it that we 

are going to have a rush to the bottom? How do we compete? 

Mr. MACDONALD. If we continue, in my opinion—I have been in 

H.R. for 40 years. I graduated in 1970, not 1969. That was a good 

year as well. The reality of it is—you want to know what we are 

looking at in 50 years? I will tell you in 20 years. Go look at Europe. That is what we are going to be. 

Mr. PAYNE. So our salvation is that we should have the rush to 

the bottom. If we are going to compete I guess just on wages, as 

you mentioned as one of the areas, we are never going to be able 

to—— 

Mr. MACDONALD. Sir, it is not a rush to the bottom. Because if 

you think about all of the things we have done—Look, I am a global executive and an American citizen. I am proud of that. 

Mr. PAYNE. You are talking about the past. I am talking about 

the future. I know what we have done. That is why we are number 

one. A rush to the bottom is not going to keep us number one. 

Mr. MACDONALD. We have been able to innovate in this country, 

and I am suggesting to you that technology will become a major 

player in thinking about how we think about labor law reform and 

how labor will be done in the United States. Technology becomes 

a big part of how you think about the Fair Labor Standards Act 

going forward. 

Chairman WALBERG. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I appreciate the testimonies, the answers as well as the questions that have been given. And we never come to the end of a discussion on this, and we won’t. We will be continuing on. But this 

is a good first step in the process. I am sure we will have other 

opportunities. 

So thank you for being with us today. 

I would recognize the ranking member for any closing comments. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding 

this hearing. 

And I would conclude that the purpose of the private sector is to 

create a U.S. workforce that benefits from the riches and the bounty of this amazing country, the United States of America, and if it 
60 

could be shared more equitably than it is being shared today. And 

that has to be one of our goals. 

And I would like you to know that I would very much like to 

work with you on cracking down on this employee misclassification. 

Because I am going to have a bill—I would love it if you would support it. Because misclassification cheats workers and taxpayers. It 

incorrectly classifies workers as independent contractors. And when 

that happens, for instance, we prevent those workers from enjoying 

the protections most Americans take for granted such as family 

medical leave, workers’ compensation, collective bargaining. 

More than 10 million workers are misclassified, and that costs 

taxpayers $2.7 billion annually, and it prevents employers from— 

actually, preventing employers from abusing the law and recouping 

an estimated $27 billion in revenue over the next 10 years should 

be our goal. And I think it should be a goal that you and I share 

in common, and I really want to work with you before I introduce 

this. 

So I see this as part of strengthening the Fair Labor Standards 

Act. It benefits workers. It levels the playing field for our employers that follow the law so they aren’t paying more and competing 

with those who cheat. 

It is essential that the protections established under the Fair 

Labor Standards Act are extended to every worker that it is meant 

to cover. And if we need some clarification on the Fair Labor 

Standards Act without weakening it, I am sure we can do that and 

do that together. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman WALBERG. I thank the gentlelady, and I certainly 

would concur with your thoughts that we encourage the amazing 

workforce that we have here in the United States. 

The exceptionalism that is America and its people is something 

that I think we can both agree with. We live with those people. We 

have raised those people. I want my sons and daughters, now 

grandchildren, to be amazing workers in an amazing country with 

opportunity to expand, with opportunity to be challenged. 

I understand work from a theological background, that there is 

an actually theology of work, that God designed work to be wonderful for us. And in fact gave a day of the week—in my Judeo Christian ethic gave a day of the week to be set aside so we won’t overwork because we like to work so much. It disappoints me so often 

to see people that don’t enjoy their work. 

I am in my sweet spot. Some of my constituents don’t think I 

should be in that sweet spot, but that is the way it is. But I think 

we ought to encourage work, but I also think we ought to encourage our employers as well. I think we can do that. Because, frankly, capitalism is a wonderful thing. It gives us the opportunity to 

expand. It gives us the opportunity to lead in the world, which we 

do. And I think that we should not be involved in a race to the bottom, but, rather, we should be involved in a race to innovate to the 

top. 

America’s psyche, America’s history, America’s pattern has always been that of innovation, of moving forward, of aggressively 

moving forward, of having cycles, yes, cycles that sometimes we expand rapidly and other times where we just plod along, but we 
61 

1 National Partnership for Women & Families and Family Values @ Work. Dallas Workers 

Speak: The Employee Case for Flexibility (2010, October), Los Angeles Workers Speak: The Employee Case for Flexibility in Hourly, Lower-Wage Jobs (2011, February), Midwest Workers 

Speak: The Employee Case for Flexibility in Manufacturing Jobs. (2011, April). New York City 

Workers Speak: The Employee Case for Flexibility among Professional Workers (2011, June). 

Retrieved 22 July 2011, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/ 

PageServer?pagename=issues—work—Library—workflex 

move forward. And I don’t think a time when now we are recognizing a global challenge that is unparalleled to what we have seen 

at other times in our history, a global challenge of people who are 

striving to achieve the same thing that America has become accustomed to—and I applaud them for that, though I may disagree with 

some of their approaches and tactics. Yet that should encourage us 

in working with our employees and FLSA to make sure that there 

is fairness for employees and employer, that there is justice for all 

in the process, but that we come out on top here in America—both 

our industry, our small businesses, and the employees who make 

it all happen. 

So we will continue to work to that direction, understanding that 

the cycles sometimes are frustrated by what government does or 

doesn’t do. And my efforts—and I will commit to my ranking member and the rest of this subcommittee that my efforts will be not 

to hold back either the employer or the employee but to make sure 

that we have incentives for both to achieve with excellence so that 

this country moves forward. 

Thank you. Now I refrain from preaching. 

I will recognize the fact that there is no further business to come 

before this committee. So, with that, I adjourn the committee. 

[Additional submission from Ms. Woolsey follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, 

National Partnership for Women & Families 

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to quality 

health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work 

and family. 

The National Partnership strongly urges members of Congress to support public 

policies that help working women and men meet the dual demands of work and 

family while preserving the vital worker protections offered by the Fair Labor 

Standards Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) provides a baseline 

of required employee protections for more than 130 million workers. The FLSA does 

not prevent employers from implementing flexible workplace policies. The types of 

flexibility consistent with the FLSA’s purpose and provisions include shift swapping, 

alternative start and end times, compressed workweeks (spanning only one week), 

team scheduling, part-time work, job sharing and scheduling at multiple locations. 

America’s workplaces are out of sync with 21st century society. Children get sick, 

parents age and health emergencies arise—but many workplaces offer little flexibility to help working women and men care for their families and still succeed at 

their jobs. Workers in this country need greater flexibility and control over scheduling, alternative schedules and overtime, parity for those working part time, more 

telecommuting opportunities, paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, and 

support to meet after-school, child and elder care needs. 

Workers want and need flexibility at work. Over the last year, the National Partnership for Women & Families interviewed workers in California, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. The message they sent was clear: All workers, regardless 

of where they live and what jobs they have, need flexibility.1 Flexibility is critical 

for workers who are managing child care and elder care responsibilities or dealing 

with their own health problems. Some workers, particularly salaried professionals, 

are likely to have more flexibility, but lower-wage and hourly workers are often left 

behind. Workers need and value flexible work arrangements that allow them to vary 

their work hours and work locations, as well as the security that comes with being 
62 

2This is the number of civilian workers whose wages fell in the lowest quartile (less than 

$11.11 per hour) in 2009. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010, March). 

National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2010 (p. 527). 

Retrieved 26 January 2011, from http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2010/ebbl0046.pdf; and 

U.S. Census Bureau. Table 584. Civilian Population—Employment Status: 1970 to 2009. Retrieved 26 January 2011, from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/ 

11s0585.pdf 3Watson, L., & Swanberg, J. (2011, May). Flexible Workplace Solutions for Low-Wage Hourly 

Workers: A Framework for a National Conversation. Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown 

Law Publication. Retrieved on 25 July 2011, from http://www.uky.edu/Centers/iwin/ 

LWPolicyFinal.pdf 4Galinsky, E., & Bond, J. (2011). Workplace Flexibility and Low-Wage Employees. Families 

and Work Institute Publication. Retrieved on 25 July 2011, from http:// 

www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/WorkFlexAndLowWageEmployees.pdf 5 Bond, J.T., & Galinsky, E. (2006, November). What workplace flexibility is available to entrylevel, hourly employees? Families and Work Institute Publication. Retrieved 26 January 2011, 

from http://www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/brief3.pdf 6Williams, J., & Huang, P. (2011). Improving Work-Life Fit in Hourly Jobs. Work Life Law, 

U.C. Hastings College of Law Publication. Retrieved 26 January 2011, from http:// 

www.worklifelaw.org/pubs/ImprovingWork-LifeFit.pdf 7Sasha Corporation. (2007, January). Compilation of Turnover Cost Studies. Retrieved 13 December 2010, from http://www.sashacorp.com/turnframe.html 

able to take paid time away from work without fear of retribution or termination. 

They report feeling resentful and undervalued when employers provide flexibility for 

some workers but not others, and when workplace policies are unclear or fail to acknowledge workers’ needs. 

Hourly, lower-wage workers are much less likely to have workplace flexibility. 

Most of the 38.5 million lower-wage workers in the United States do not have access 

to even the most basic flexibility policies.2 Many are required to work in shifts that 

are unpredictable and constantly changing. They may be asked to work overtime 

with little notice, and they seldom have leeway to arrive late, leave early, or take 

time mid-day to deal with family or medical emergencies.3 These workers typically 

risk workplace discipline or job loss for taking time off when they are sick or need 

to care for a sick child.4 Lower-wage workers say that any flexibility they have is 

often at an individual supervisor’s discretion and provided on an inconsistent basis. 

Because these workers have so little control over their schedules, they say they 

struggle to make quality child care arrangements and meet other family commitments. 

Workplace flexibility has big payoffs for business. Flexible workplaces promote 

greater job satisfaction, stronger job commitment and higher rates of worker retention 5—outcomes that boost productivity and profits. The turnover rate among hourly workers is notoriously high—80 to 500 percent in some industries 6—in part because their jobs offer little or no flexibility. Replacing workers can cost anywhere 

from 25 to 200 percent of annual compensation.7 Businesses that don’t provide flexibility pay for it when they have to pay to hire, train and retain a constantly revolving workforce. 

Public policies set a standard for all businesses and workers to follow, so that no 

business is put at a disadvantage or penalized in the short or long term for doing 

the right—and ultimately profitable—thing. Leading employers have already instituted innovative practices because they recognize the role that flexibility can play 

in fostering a loyal, productive workplace and improving worker retention. These 

businesses allow hourly workers more control over their schedules and their work, 

and provide the flexibility that workers need to succeed on the job. Some of these 

practices include flexible schedules, self-scheduling, cross-training workers to fill in 

when a team member is out, and supporting work from home. Even though some 

employers and industries voluntarily adopt flexibility policies for all of their workers, only a small fraction of the lower-wage workforce is employed in these businesses. That is why public policies are critical to changing the culture, leveling the 

playing field and helping both working families and employers. 

Congress took an important step toward improving workplace standards for working families last year when it provided millions of nursing moms the support and 

protection they need. The Affordable Care Act amended the FLSA to give covered 

female employees the right to reasonable break times and a private location, other 

than a bathroom, to express milk at work. The law is an important step in making 

sure the nation’s workplaces meet the needs of working women and their families. 

We hope that Congress will look for other opportunities to strengthen our nation’s 

laws to meet the needs of a 21st century workforce. 
63 

8 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010, March). Employee Benefits in 

the United States National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, 

March 2010 (p. 120). Retrieved 13 December 2010, from http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/ 

2010/ebbl0046.pdf 

With public policies that help workers meet the dual demands of work and family, 

both businesses and workers in the United States will get the support and protection they need to ensure healthy and productive workplaces. Such policies include: 

• Paid Sick Days—The Healthy Families Act (H.R. 1876/S. 984) would complement businesses’ existing family friendly practices while establishing a minimum 

paid sick days standard for all employers. This standard would level the playing 

field by making paid sick days a universal practice, while also ensuring enough 

flexibility for employers to continue offering more generous benefits. Businesses already providing basic paid sick days protections would not need to change their 

practices. The result: healthier workplaces, reduced turnover, more satisfied and 

productive workers, and better bottom lines. 

• Paid Family and Medical Leave—Paid family and medical leave has a big impact at little cost. Yet only 11 percent of workers in the United States have access 

to paid family leave through their employers, and less than 40 percent have access 

to personal medical leave through a private temporary disability insurance program 

provided by their employers.8 Laws providing paid family and medical leave allow 

workers to continue to earn a portion of their pay while they take time away from 

work to: address a serious health condition (including pregnancy); care for a family 

member with a serious health condition; or care for a newborn, newly adopted child 

or newly placed foster child. When provided through a public insurance system, the 

cost of paid family and medical leave programs is shared between employer and employee, which allows even the smallest businesses to offer leave to all of their employees. In fact, existing paid family and medical leave programs in California and 

New Jersey are funded solely through employee contributions with no direct costs 

to businesses. 

• FLSA Coverage for Home Care Workers—Millions of home care workers are 

currently denied basic wage and hour protections. These workers provide invaluable 

care that enables people who are sick, elderly and disabled to live with dignity and 

independence in their own homes. Yet, without fair pay for their hard work, many 

of these hardworking caregivers and their families struggle to put food on the table. 

This loophole in FLSA coverage reinforces gender and race based pay gaps, because 

more than 90 percent of home care workers are women, and more than half are African Americans and Latinas. The Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act (H.R. 

2341) would remedy a serious flaw in FLSA coverage that excludes home care workers from minimum wage and overtime protections. 

The National Partnership for Women & Families strongly urges members of Congress to support proposals that give workers paid sick days, paid family leave, and 

greater control over the time, place and duration of their work. Model employers 

have recognized the importance of making flexibility available to all workers—including lower-wage workers—and they have taken steps to establish fair and flexible workplace policies. When all businesses adhere to a standard of basic workplace 

flexibility, including paid sick days and paid family and medical leave, the result 

will be healthier, more reliable and more productive workers at every wage level— 

and employers that reap the benefits of more profitable businesses. 

[Additional submissions from Ms. Conti follow:] 
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65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 
83 

[The policy paper, ‘‘Flexible Workplace Solutions for Low-Wage 

Hourly Workers: A Framework for a National Conversation,’’ may 

be accessed at the following Internet address:] 

http://www.uky.edu/Centers/iwin/LWPolicyFinal.pdf 

[The policy paper, ‘‘Improving Work-Life Fit in Hourly Jobs: An 

Underutilized Cost-Cutting Strategy in a Globalized World,’’ may 

be accessed at the following Internet address:] 

http://www.worklifelaw.org/pubs/ImprovingWork-LifeFit.pdf 

[Additional submission from Mr. McDonald follows:] 
84 

August 9, 2011. 

Chairman JOHN KLINE, 

Education & the Workforce Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, 

D.C. 20515. 

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Additional Information for the Record re: July 14 Hearing, 

‘‘The Fair Labor Standards Act: Is It Meeting the Needs of the Twenty-First Century Workplace?’’ 

I am writing to provide additional information to the Committee with respect to 

your question about the difficulty in providing flexible work options to today’s workforce. I ask that this be added to the hearing record. 

The IBM Corporation is committed to creating a supportive and flexible work environment for its employees. Giving employees more flexibility and control over 

when and where they do their work is an important means by which they achieve 

greater work/life integration and enhanced productivity. This is done in the context 

of a pay-for-performance work environment. 

As I noted in my testimony, we believe that work is something one does—not a 

place one goes. However, the universe of IBM’s flexible work options is more widely 

available to exempt employees than non-exempt employees in the U.S. IBM’s policy 

is shaped by several outdated and unclear Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provisions that date back to the 1938 passage of the law. 

These and other FLSA provisions have not been updated to reflect our 21st century economy. They were enacted prior to the prevalence of compressed or flexible 

work weeks, reduced work schedules, job sharing, mobile/remote working, part-time 

work, etc. They also predate computers, e-mail, Internet, voicemail and smart 

phones! 

One example relates to the administrative requirement to track and account for 

all time worked by non-exempt workers, despite the fact that the very term ‘‘work’’ 

has never been defined. In an environment in which nearly half of all U.S.-based 

IBM employees work remotely, tracking and verifying all time worked by well-paid, 

highly skilled non-exempt employees is challenging. 

The legal risks and liabilities resulting from law suits and claims of alleged nonpayment for time worked—regardless of whether or not management was knowledgeable of or had authorized the time worked—add an even greater disincentive 

for employers. Instead of running the risk of expensive litigation, employers often, 

but reluctantly, elect to limit the flexibility given to employees as to when and 

where they work. 

As an employer, it is far easier in practice to offer—without the threat of litigation—flexible work options to exempt workers in our country. However, if additional 

clarity were added to the FLSA addressing which activities are compensable and 

which ones are not; if the duties of well-paid and well-educated computer employees 

were modernized in the statute; and if the exemption status of well-paid, commissioned salespeople were expanded to include more inside salespeople, more U.S. 

workers could enjoy a greater range of flexible work options. In turn, these workers 

could better balance their personal and professional needs. With these changes, we 

can turn a lose-lose situation into a win-win situation for employees and employers. 

Sincerely, 

J. RANDALL MACDONALD, 

Senior Vice President, Human Resources. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ