Reply to After 40 hours its time and a half, wake up nannies and smell the coffee!!!

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Reply to "After 40 hours its time and a half, wake up nannies and smell the coffee!!!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think PP is wrong about it being ok for the base / OT amts to be implicate instead of explicate in the contract. 
You can negotiate based on avg rates against a fixed amt of guaranteed hrs each week. But the contract needs to spell out the base rate. And yes one reason this is so important is so that if a family needs an extra 2 hours one week, they need to pay at the contract's specified OT rate, not the avg rate. 
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You're right, she is unequivocally WRONG and her advice could get someone in trouble. Since there is no actual government recognized thing as an average hourly rate, unless you specify the actual base and OT rates in the contract, the rightful assumption will be that you were paying your nanny at $15/hour and failed to pay the OT. Personally, I always negotiate a normal hourly rate as my base and expect a true OT rate of 1.5 times my otherwise appropriate base rate. 50 hours is going to cost you, and in my opinion, it should. That being said, if you're going to take the "average" rate approach, specify the true rates to cover your ass.[/quote]

Families should absolutely protect themselves by spelling out the implicit base rate and OT rate.  That is the lowest-risk course of action for employers.  However, if they fail to do so, they are not automatically in violation of the law.  A court or administrative body would look at the entire work agreement and other relevant facts to determine whether there was an implicit base rate for hours 0 through 40 and an implicit OT rate for hours over 40.  It does not matter that there is no "government-recognized thing" as an average hourly rate.  The meaning of that term can be ascertained from the dictionary, from local custom, and most importantly from other provisions in the agreement, [b]such as a clause stating that hours beyond the guaranteed 50 get paid at the time and a half rate of $20.46 per hour as opposed to either $15 or $22.50.[/b]  [/quote]

That WOULD be spelling out the OT rate genius. If you do nothing more than state the weekly amount, with no mention of the proper OT rate, it WILL be assumed that the weekly amount divided by the number of hours is the rate she was paid at (its only common sense). I know because I've been there and I've done the research, and I know the precedent. The nanny will be given the benefit of the doubt NOT you, so just be explicit and stop trying to be tricky. There's nothing illegal about negotiating a weekly amount, but you HAVE to be clear on the hourly rates. [/quote]

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