Before and After

• Date: 01 September 2005
• Published date: 01 September 2005
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X05276577
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE LAW AND HRM
10.1177/0734371X05276577
REVIEW OF PUBLIC PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION / Sept. 2005
Wilkins, Wald / BEFORE AND AFTER
Before and After
Revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act
VICKY M. WILKINS
MICHAEL WALD
University of Georgia
The final regulations issued in April 2004 by the Department of Labor make a
number of changes to the way in which employers wil apply the Fair Labor Stan-
dards Act (FLSA). The primary changes concern overtime compensation and
how employers test to determine whether an employee is exempt from the FLSA’s
overtime provisions. The new regulations increase the minimum salaries
required for exempt status and eliminate the “short” test and the “long” test in
favor of one standard test. This article reviews the changes in the regulations and
discusses the implications of the revisions on the work of public human resource
managers.
Keywords: wages; overtime; compensation; human resource management;
Fair Labor Standards Act
Morethanayearago,theU.S.DepartmentofLabor(DOL)issuednew
regulations to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA; 2003). Employers
were given until August 2004 to bring their companies into compliance with
the law. The DOL argues that the revised regulations will strengthen overtime
rights for 6.7 million American workers, including 1.3 million low-wage
workers who were denied overtime under the old rules (DOL, 2004),
although not everyone applauded the changes. For example, the American
Federation of Government Employees (AFGE; 2004) has criticized certain
provisions such as the new exemption for highly compensated workers. The
AFGE also believes that the new minimum salary level established to guaran-
tee overtime was set too low. To understand the implications of the new regu-
lations on public human resource managers, we must begin by reviewing the
law and addressing the major changes in the FLSA’s regulations.
The FLSA of 1938 is one of the landmark pieces of legislation of Presi-
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The FLSA sought to establish ade-
Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. 25, No. 3 September 2005 265-270
DOI: 10.1177/0734371X05276577
© 2005 Sage Publications
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REVIEW OF PUBLIC PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION / Sept. 2005
quate working conditions by setting minimum wage, overtime pay, equal
pay, record keeping, and child labor standards for private sector employees.
The original law set a floor on wages (without mention of highly compen-
sated workers), rejected varying wage floors based on regional differentials,
and set a ceiling on...