The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is encouraging Congress to support reforms to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as proposed by the Department of Labor. The Washington D.C.-based engineering industry association represents the business and political interests of about 6,000 independent engineering companies nationwide.
The ACEC has long advocated changes to the FLSA that would allow member firms to more easily identify exempt and non-exempt employees from the act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements, and has pushed to simplify the statute in other ways.
David Raymond, ACEC president, says the changes are long overdue. “The regulations governing overtime and minimum wage eligibility under FLSA have not been significantly revised in over 50 years,” he says. “The modern workplace has changed considerably during that time, particularly in the engineering industry, and the current regulations have failed to keep the pace with those changes.”