Wage and hour laws are tricky, but when dealing with contingent, project based workers, there is an added layer of complexity – particularly when third parties such as staffing companies and MSPs are involved.

Last year, a group of temporary workers launched a wage and hour lawsuit against the staffing company that employed them AND the company for whom the workers’ performed their services (the staffing company’s client).

The workers signed an agreement with the staffing company and their client during onboarding stating that they were exempt from overtime and were required to work a maximum of eight hours a day.

However, the lawsuit argued that the temporary workers regularly worked more than eight hours a day AND that upon closer inspection of California wage and hour law, their job descriptions did not meet the requirements needed to qualify them as exempt.

A settlement of an undisclosed amount was reached in April after almost a year of litigation. Note that even though the employer of the workers was the staffing company, the client company still got sued.

Are Your Temporary Workers Exempt on Non- Exempt?
The first step to ensuring that you’re not falling foul of Wage and Hour law when it comes to your temporary workers is to determine their classification. Even if you’re working with a 3rd party to employ the workers it’s a good idea to write a detailed job description for the position and use that as a basis to work out the correct classification. Broadly speaking though, the majority of temporary workers will most likely be considered non-exempt unless their jobs fall within one of the following categories:

Executive – Meaning they perform managerial functions
Professional – Performing professional tasks such as law, medicine, engineering, accounting etc.
Administrative – Undertaking work relating to general business operations, working under general supervision along specialized or technical lines, requiring special training and/or knowledge.
Regardless of which of the above categories they fall into, all positions must pay more than twice the minimum wage for the worker to qualify as exempt. Contact your legal counsel, HR department or call us on 855 250 5000 if you’re unsure whether your temporary workers should be classified as exempt or non-exempt.


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