Full-Time Pharmacists For Wal-Mart Were Not Entitled To Overtime Compensation Under FLSA
On remand from the Tenth Circuit, a Colorado federal district court has granted summary judgment for Wal-Mart in actions by full-time pharmacists seeking overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Wal-Mart maintained a written compensation policy providing that the pharmacists be paid on a salary basis. However, the pharmacists claimed that Wal-Mart's actual policy of prospectively reducing their full-time base hours with a commensurate reduction in salary in response to sales declines make their salary a sham and rendered them the functional equivalent of hourly employees. However, more than 98% of the plaintiffs experienced two or less prospective salary changes, and the remainder experienced either three or four prospective base hour adjustments over an extended period averaging approximately four years and five months, or only once or twice a year.
The Department of Labor (DOL) had determined in
opinion letters that yearly adjustments were an acceptable practice for
businesses to deal with changing market conditions.
In re Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.