Supreme Courtroom OKs additional time pay for $200,000-a-year oil rig employee

The Supreme Courtroom dominated Wednesday that an power firm worker who earned greater than $200,000 a 12 months nonetheless certified for additional time pay beneath a New Deal-era federal regulation meant to guard blue-collar staff.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices sided with Michael Hewitt, who was a “tool-pusher” supervising 12 to 14 staff on an offshore oil rig. Software-pushers supervise drilling and oversee properly upkeep actions, in addition to ensuring the rig has all of the instruments and gear it wants, in line with power staffing firm Brunel.

Hewitt was paid a minimal of $963 for any day he labored as a part of an uncommon schedule on the oil rig.

Between 2014 and 2017, Hewitt was paid greater than $200,000 a 12 months by his employer, Helix Vitality Options Group. However Hewitt earned no additional time, even when he labored greater than 80 hours every week, as typically occurred.

Enterprise teams had informed the court docket {that a} ruling for Hewitt would flip the Truthful Labor Requirements Act on its head by encouraging extremely educated and well-paid staff to sue beneath a regulation that was meant to deal with substandard wages and dangerously lengthy hours.

In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court docket held that Hewitt certified for additional time pay beneath the FLSA, regardless of a provision of the regulation that exempts “bona fide executives.” Underneath Labor Division laws, workers making greater than $100,000 a 12 months typically do not should be paid additional time.

Hewitt prevailed, Kagan wrote, as a result of the corporate paid him by the day and never weekly. The regulation at concern “applies solely to workers paid by the week (or longer); it’s not met when an employer pays an worker by the day, as Helix paid Hewitt,” Kagan wrote.

In dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh lamented the court docket’s “head-scratching assertion” that Hewitt wasn’t assured a weekly minimal in any week he labored whilst he was “assured to obtain $963 for any day that he labored.” Justice Samuel Alito joined Kavanaugh’s dissent and Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented individually.

The case is Helix Vitality Options Group v. Hewitt, 21-984.