U.S. Department of Labor Issues New Wage and Hour Opinion Letters

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that it has issued three new opinion letters that address compliance issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). An opinion letter is an official, written opinion by the Department's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) on how a particular law applies in specific circumstances presented by the individual person or entity that requested the letter.

The opinion letters issued today are:

• FLSA2019-3, addressing whether a youth  residential care facility may implement an "8 and 80" overtime pay system;
• FLSA2019-4, addressing the application of the teacher exemption to Nutritional Outreach Instructors employed by a public university; and
• FLSA2019-5, addressing the application of the agricultural exemption to the freezing, cutting, packing, storing, and/or transportation of a farm's own fruit, vegetable, or meat products.

The Department offers a search function allowing users to search existing opinion letters by keyword, year, topic, and a variety of other filters; and encourages the public to submit requests for opinion letters to WHD to obtain an opinion or to determine whether existing guidance already addresses their questions. The Division exercises its discretion in determining whether and how it will respond to each request.