09

Guaranteed pay for irregular hours, piece-rate overtime, and the hospital work period

Not every workweek fits the standard hour-by-hour overtime formula. This chapter covers the narrow, tightly conditioned alternatives the Act allows: a guaranteed weekly sum for genuinely irregular schedules, two ways to handle piece-rate and multi-rate overtime, and a special work period for hospitals and residential care.

In this chapter

• +A genuinely irregular schedule can be paid a guaranteed weekly sum instead of overtime figured hour by hour, but only under a narrow section 7(f) contract with specific required terms.
• +Piece-rate and multi-rate workers normally earn overtime at whichever rate applied to the hours actually worked — though an employer can adopt an established basic rate as an alternative.
• +Hospitals and residential-care establishments may calculate overtime over a 14-day period instead of the workweek, under their own hour thresholds.