Groome Transportation, the company that operates Auburn University's Tiger Transit has amended its payroll policies to cut overtime allowances as the result of economic challenges, reports the Auburn Plainsman. While employers are usually not allowed to make collective bargaining agreements with workers that deny overtime wages, Groome has discovered a loophole through the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Motor Carrier Exemption.

For workers to be considered exempt, their primary tasks must involve safely operating motor vehicles across state of international lines.

To fall under this exemption, the employer requires all of its drivers to make shuttle trips across the state border to Atlanta, the source explains.

"They have it in their contract that when we go over state lines we don’t get paid over time, and I really don’t understand that," Lutricia Blunt, a Tiger Transit driver, told the news outlet. Blunt adds that workers are uniformly denied overtime wages even if they don't make frequent trips across state lines.

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division is usually on the lookout for payroll practices that use loopholes to deny workers the wages they are owed. If employers have revised their policies for employee attendance remuneration, they should also have proof available that the changes are FLSA-compliant and that all workers were notified. 

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