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Overtime Pay for Prevailing Rate Employees Who Negotiate Wages

B-191520 Jun 06, 1978
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Highlights

The legality of provisions of a labor-management agreement was questioned, and a decision was requested as to whether the Interior Department may lawfully comply with an advisory arbitration award dealing with the computation of overtime hours. Penalty pay (special overtime) is not authorized by 5 U.S.C. 5544 for prevailing rate employees, whether or not they negotiate their wages. Therefore, such overtime may not be paid. The arbitrator's advisory opinion, in which employee's preshift and postshift duty hours were considered separate periods of overtime, was based on invalid contractual provisions and is not to be followed. Periods of overtime worked in 1 workday are to be aggregated to determine the total overtime compensation payable.

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