Let's say you have an employee who works 40 hours per week at the rate of $13.00 per hour. Now let's say that same employee needs to start working 20 hours of overtime per week to meet your needs. You still, however, want that employee to earn to same effective rate of $13.00 per week, so you reduce the employee's straight-time hourly rate of $11.15. When the need to work overtime ends, you then return the employee to the original $13.00 rate. Is the reduction of the employee's base hourly rate legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act?
According to the 11th Circuit in Thompson v. Regions Security Services, the answer is "not unless you want a jury to decide the legality of your pay practices under the FLSA."