Court Opinion

ID: 9464076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:24:48.634262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:27.133722
License: Public Domain

JAMES HUNTER, III, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur with the majority that the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) permit the Secretary of Labor to extend coverage to some “executive,” “administrative,” and “professional” employees performing the work of strikers who themselves would be covered by the Act. The district court at this point in the ease properly enjoined future violations of the FLSA by Western Union and created a framework for payments of amounts owed to employees for work during the 1971 strike.
This court has not decided that all such managerial employees are non-exempt from the Act. In addition to the calculation of how much back pay is due, the district court must now also decide the still open question of precisely which employees are covered by the overtime provisions. That issue will involve a careful review of the applicable regulations.
I believe the district court might possibly be misled by the majority’s statement that the Secretary is within his discretion in using the “workweek” in determining the classification of employees. Although that standard might properly be applied to some managerial employees, it should not affect those exempted by the final provisos in the sections defining executive, administrative and professional personnel.1
First, the broader language of those provisos is ill-fitted to definition on a week-to-*485week basis. The court need not accept an interpretation by the Secretary which is plainly inconsistent with the regulations. See Bowles v. Seminole Rock Co., 325 U.S. 410, 413-14, 65 S.Ct. 1215, 89 L.Ed. 1700 (1945). Second, to classify highly paid employees on the basis of work performed during a given time-frame rather than on the basis of primary duties would compound the difficulty of reconciling the Secretary’s interpretation of the regulations with the statutory exemption in the FLSA of those employed in a “bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity,” 29 U.S.C. § 213 (1970).
Provided, That an employee who is compensated on a salary basis at a rate of not less than $250 per week . and whose primary duty consists of the management of the enterprise in which he is employed shall be deemed to meet all of the requirements of this section.

. 29 C.F.R. §§ 541.1-541.3 (1976). The current proviso pertaining to executives, id. § 541.1, is *485typical of the language of all three sections of the regulations: