FLSA Burning Question: Can a Firefighter Also Be Employed as a Bus Driver?
Today’s burning question: I am a career firefighter plus I work part time for my city as a bus driver. Can the city pay me different rates of pay and does the city have to include the hours from my bus driving job when calculating overtime for my fire department job?
Answer: The answer to is yes and no. Yes, the city can pay you different rates for different jobs. That much is clearly permitted by the Fair Labor Standards Act, although calculating the proper rate for overtime can become complicated.
In addition the hours that you work in your part time employment as a bus driver do not have to be counted toward your hours worked as a firefighter, provided your employment as a bus driver is “on an occasional or sporadic basis and solely at the employee’s option.” The FLSA addresses this issue quite clearly:
29 USC 207 Max Hours (p)
(2)If an employee of a public agency which is a State, political subdivision of a State, or an interstate governmental agency undertakes, on an occasional or sporadic basis and solely at the employee’s option, part-time employment for the public agency which is in a different capacity from any capacity in which the employee is regularly employed with the public agency, the hours such employee was employed in performing the different employment shall be excluded by the public agency in the calculation of the hours for which the employee is entitled to overtime compensation under this section.
What could complicate the question is whether your employment as a bus driver is indeed “occasional or sporadic.” That would be a question that must be answered on a case by case basis. And then there is the question about whether the same would hold true if you were employed in an exempt capacity, such as a schoolteacher or administrator. We will leave that for next time.
The FLSA quote, “… an occasional or sporadic … part-time employment for the public agency which is in a different capacity from any capacity in which the employee is regularly employed with the public agency, since it specifies “THE agency, implies different work performed for the same agency, wouldn’t it? For instance, “interpretive guide” at a park with park-time cleaning duties? If it were intended to cover working for completely different agencies, wouldn’t the law have been worded that way (e.g., “part-time employment in a different agency”)?
More to the point, why don’t we pay our cops and firefighters and EMS personnel enough so they don’t have to have part-time jobs to make ends meet?!?
I suppose the question is – what is a public agency? If I work for the City of ABC Fire Department, who is my employer, the City of ABC or the ABC Fire Department? Whose name is on the checks??? Who signs the checks??? The answer may be different in departments. If the firefighters are considered to be employees of the City of ABC… and the City of ABC also employs the bus drivers to drive… take your pick… school buses, senior citizen vans, etc. – it is the same public agency.
Here is the FLSA definition of public agency: 29 USC 203
(x) “Public agency” means the
Government of the United States; the government of a State or political
subdivision thereof; any agency of the United States (including the
United States Postal Service and Postal Regulatory Commission), a State,
or a political subdivision of a State; or any interstate governmental
agency.
Agree 100%…
I would say Yes.
But, remember its two separate Job Classification with two different BFOQ’s and rate’s of pay.
In California one would be classified as a “Safety” position and the other “Non-safety”.
I have had friends that were firefighters and the part time Police Officers in their community on their days off.
Hire enough firefighters, cops, and EMS personnel (along with DOT and other critical needs), and dump some of the Deputy Junior Assistant Commissioners in Charge of Handing Out Paper Clips and Making the Governor Look Good.
BFOQ? Big Fire Officer Questionnaire? Big Foot Or Queeg? Beg For Only Quarters? Big F**kin’ Old Q (siren)? Enquiring minds want to know!
Bona Fide Occupational Qualification in case your Google button is broken there Andrew…..
As a Great American Philosopher once said, “there you go again…” getting all technical. I’ve found that Googling certain acronyms makes WebSense unhappy and leads to blocking sites.