Breaking News from the Department of Labor

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The opinion letters issued yesterday are:

• FLSA2020-17: Addressing whether the regular rate of pay of an employee who is paid on a piece-rate basis may be calculated by dividing total earnings by the number of productive and nonproductive hours worked during the workweek in the absence of a specific agreement with the employee to use such calculation.
• FLSA2020-18: Addressing whether insect farming qualifies as “agriculture” under Section 3(f) of the FLSA and whether certain workers employed by an insect farming operation may be exempt from overtime pay requirements under Section 13(b)(12).

The public can search for existing opinion letters by keyword, year, topic, and a variety of other filters on the Department’s website. The Department also 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.