A Wisconsin concrete company paid workers a flat 40 hours even during busy seasons, banking the extra hours to use during slow months. This violates the Fair Labor Standards Act because it dodges overtime pay for hours over 40 per week, no matter how steady the paycheck feels.
I had a client who had an agreement with their employees. It was a concrete company, and here in Wisconsin, our weather's not great for a few months out of the year. And so they didn't have the ability to put jobs out there for their employees. And so some years ago, they had an agreement with their employees that during the months where they had the work and the weather was appropriate, they would bank hours. So what that meant was during the great months when there was a ton of work to be had, they would work as many hours as they could. They would just get paid for their 40 hours a week. Week and all the extra hours would get banked. And what this company then did was in the months where they didn't have work to give these people, they still paid them their 40 hours per week. So people weren't getting laid off. They knew they had consistent source of income coming in. The employees were thrilled with this arrangement. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which people also call the FLSA, that is illegal. You cannot do that because you're not paying people overtime.
