# Can someone please explain this to me? (Overtime elimination)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-please-explain-this-to-me-overtime-elimination/188500>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 14, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-please-explain-this-to-me-overtime-elimination/188500 "2003-07-14T22:37:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-please-explain-this-to-me-overtime-elimination/188500/21 "2003-07-15T18:55:09Z")

</div>

Is flex time really illegal? We use it now at my workplace (a huge, multinational corporation), and the computer timekeeping systems recognize paid, flex hours taken off. I’m a salaried, exempt worker by the current definition. We do, however, get paid overtime, but not necessarily at the 1.5x or 2x rate (there’s a cap based on 1.5x or 2x the highest hourly employee pay rate). Alternatively, we can take flex time. No one ever really cares which any of use ever choose. If it’s a few hours, I take the pay. If I work 17 hours like yesterday, I’m going to ask for 8 hours of flex time plus an hour of overtime (I like the round numbers). I was under the impression that flex time was perfectly legal, in that I’m an exempt employee and have to right to overtime. On the other hand, there are a hell of a lot of good jobs out there (if you’re not a web designer) and competition pretty-much forces overtime to be paid if not the law.

For the employee and the employer, it seems to me that flex time = overtime pay. If you take the flex time off, _someone_ is (1) either not getting work done while you’re not there, or (2) someone else is working extra hard to cover for you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-please-explain-this-to-me-overtime-elimination/188500/22 "2003-07-15T20:26:07Z")

</div>

Balthisar:  
Flex time is legal depending on how you do it.  
You CANNOT give flex time to an hourly employee in order to avoid paying him for work over 40 hours performed in one week.  
If an hourly guy operating a forklift works 41 hours in one work week, he gets paid for 1 hour of overtime. Period. Even if you decided to “reward” him the next week with 40 hours of paid time off, he stills gets that hour of overtime.  
You CAN give an exempt employee time off in exchange for working over 40 hours a week. You can just as legally NOT give an exempt employee time off for such a behavior, paid or not.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-please-explain-this-to-me-overtime-elimination/188500.md?page=1)