Am I Entitled to Overtime Pay if I’m a Salaried Manager with Minimal Supervisory Duties?
Q: I’m paid a salary and officially I’m a manager (that’s my title). I work a lot of hours but I don’t “manage” or supervise that much. Am I entitled to overtime pay?
A: First off, being paid a salary does not disentitle a worker from overtime pay at all. The type of job (and industry) will have some bearing. However, in general under Ontario law, working more than 44 hours in any given week will entitle most workers to overtime pay, at time-and-a-half of the effective hourly rate for any hours worked beyond the first 44 hours.
If you’re a so-called manager or supervisor you may not be entirely out of luck either. Section 22(9) of Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 is frequently overlooked. It entitles managers or supervisors to overtime pay if they work more than 44 hours in a given week, and more than 50% of their duties that week are, in fact, non-managerial or non-supervisory in nature. On the other hand, if the bulk of the manager’s weekly duties entail actual managing or supervising than this will typically disentitle a manager from overtime pay for the applicable week(s).
The existence of an overtime policy requiring workers to get pre-approval before working extra time, may not matter, either. This was the case in the recent class action case against CIBC (Fresco, 2022 ONCA 115) in which the Court of Appeal confirmed that there was a culture of pressure to work overtime to get ahead at the bank and the bank was relying on the illegal policy to avoid paying overtime.
If you are a worker or employer with questions about this topic, employment law class actions, or any other labour, disability or human rights law please feel free to call or email me.
This article was originally published by The Hamilton Spectator.
