(http://afgecouncil222.com)
January 9, 2006

E:Alert for GS-360-11/12/13/14/15 Employees: Union FLSA Suffered and Permitted Overtime Survey

Union FLSA Suffered and Permitted Overtime Survey

     You are receiving this email because you are, or have been, a GS-360 employee at the 11 through 15 grades at any time since June 2000.

      The Union is actively litigating an Arbitration on behalf of all GS-360 employees at grades GS-11 and up. We anticipate a favorable Arbitration Award and/or Settlement Agreement on liability within the next 45 days, and we now need to determine what damages you will receive if we prevail on winning this case.

     We have drafted a detailed "damages survey," which is attached to this email. We need your help in determining damages, since we cannot recover backpay for you if you do not help us figure out how much you are owed.

     There are three types of damages we can recover for you: underpaid overtime, comp time damages and unpaid overtime work. We have received information from the Agency documenting most of the first two types of damages, and we need your help concentrating on measuring how much backpay you are owed for uncompensated overtime. You have probably worked unpaid / uncompensated overtime, but don't know it. Nearly all of you receiving this Survey (and this email) are "Exempt" from the Fair Labor Standards Act, and have had no reason to believe you would ever be compensated for overtime work.

     Attached is an overtime survey the Union and its attorneys have created to evaluate your case to determine how much you are owed.

     While measuring damages for other GS job series, we received several responses that indicate that people are working through their lunch period two or three times a week. These same people, however, tell us that they don't believe they are entitled to any overtime pay and that they have been fully compensated for any "overtour" hours of work. We understand that "overtour" may have been misunderstood by employees being surveyed to mean only coming in to work early, staying late, working at home, working on weekends, etc. That is not true - uncompensated overtime includes working through lunch.

     The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) covers overtime pay for employees. To protect employees from being pressured to work overtime without compensation, the law recognizes the concept of "suffer and permitted" overtime. This means that a reasonable supervisor knew or should have known that the employee was doing overtime, but the employee was not paid overtime. When this happens, the employee is entitled to overtime.

     We want to be sure that you're paid for all of your work. Please complete your survey soon and email it to flsa@sniderlaw.com or, if you'd rather, you can print it out and fax it to our attorneys. Their contact information is:

Snider & Associates, LLC
104 Church Lane, Suite 201
Baltimore, MD 21208
410-653-9060 phone
410-653-9061 fax
flsa@sniderlaw.com email
www.sniderlaw.com webpage

If you have questions, please talk with your Local President.

Suffered and Permitted Overtime Questionaire (1-06-06 doc)

E:mail comments or suggestions to: AFGE COUNCIL 222/ADMIN/RIC/HUD@hud.gov or just hit reply