What is my overtime rate if I have two hourly rates for two types of work?
Sometimes employees have two different types of work that they do for one employer. An example might be that they are janitors at two different locations and the tasks that they perform at each are different. What if they work over 40 hours? How is their overtime pay calculated?
Under both Connecticut and Federal law, the default rule is that overtime pay is calculated by taking a weighted average of the hours worked in the two different jobs. For example, if your two rates are $10 and $16, and you work 30 hours in each role, then your weighted average si $13 and all hours after 40 are to be paid at $19.50 ($13 x 1.5).
An employer can also pay overtime based on the type of work performed after the 40th hour. For example, it can pay $15 for work type 1 above if that work is performed after the 40th work hour of the week.
What an employer cannot do is pay only on the lower rate, that is pay overtime only at the $15 per hour rate when in fact $16 per hour work was performed after the 40th hour. Paying overtime like this is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Connecticut Minimum Wage Act.