We haven’t written about the partial overtime exemption in an number of years but with the odd season this one is turning out to be, it may be a good time to remind folks of how overtime works in general and how the partial exemption that gins can take advantage of works.

As way of background, all employees that work over forty (40) hours per week are entitled to overtime. If the employee doesn’t work over 40 hrs, they are not entitled to any overtime. That overtime pay is 1 and 1/2 the regular pay rate for the employee.

Cotton gins have had a partial exemption from overtime for a portion of the year for many of their employees. There are actually two code sections in the Fair labor Standards Act that address this partial exemption. They divide the exemption between two different groups of employees and treat the exemption slightly different for each.

Section 13(h) and 13(i) address these partial exemptions from overtime. There are some similarities with these two exemptions. Both provide for a 14 week period where the employees that are eligible  overtime (worked over 40 hrs per week) can be paid overtime over 48 hours per week or 10 hours per day instead of 40 hours per week. The provisions say that during claimed week, the employee is due either daily or weekly overtime whichever is greater. Some examples will be shown below.

Section 13(h) is the section that deals with employees that are necessary and incidental to the ginning process. Some examples are truck drivers, combo bookkeeper/scale clerks, watchmen, office personnel, repair personnel etc. For these employees, you can use the exemption for 14 weeks during a calendar year.

Section 13(i) is the section that discusses employees that are actively and exclusively engaged in the ginning of cotton. Examples of these employees include ginners, ginners helpers, scale clerks (in the gin), yard hands, clean up people etc. You can use the exemption in 13(i) for 14 weeks during a consecutive 52 week period.

Since these exemptions are so similar it is possible to forget you’ve run out of one but can still use the other as they run slightly different time periods (calendar year vs 52 week period).

IF you’ve read this far you’re probably totally confused. Lets go through some examples.

For weeks where you are taking the exemption. (This decision can be made at the time of writing the payroll. You don’t have to decide before the week has started).