778.603—Special overtime provisions for certain employees receiving remedial education under section 7(q).
Section 7(q) of the Act, enacted as part of the 1989 Amendments, provides an exemption from the overtime pay requirements for time spent by certain employees who are receiving remedial education. The exemption provided by section 7(q), as implemented by these regulations, allows any employer to require that an employee spend up to 10 hours in the aggregate in any workweek in remedial education without payment of overtime compensation provided that the employee lacks a high school diploma or educational attainment at the eighth-grade level; the remedial education is designed to provide reading and other basic skills at an eighth-grade level or below, or to fulfill the requirements for a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate; and the remedial education does not include job-specific training. Employees must be compensated at their regular rate of pay for the time spent receiving such remedial education. The employer must maintain a record of the hours that an employee is engaged each workday and each workweek in receiving remedial education, and the compensation paid each pay period for the time so engaged, as described in 29 CFR 516.34. The remedial education must be conducted during discrete periods of time set aside for such a program, and, to the maximum extent practicable, away from the employee's normal work station. An employer has the burden to establish compliance with all applicable requirements of this special overtime provision as set forth in section 7(q) of the Act and in this section of the regulations. Section 7(q) is solely an exemption from the overtime provisions of section 7(a) of the Act. It is not an exemption from the requirements of any other law that regulates employment practices, including the standards that are used to select individuals for employment. An employer creating a remedial education program pursuant to section 7(q) should be mindful not to violate other applicable requirements. See, for example, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2000e
et seq.; Executive Order 11246, as amended, 3 CFR part 339 (1964-1965 Compilation), reprinted in
42 U.S.C. 2000e note; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 701
et seq.; and the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures published at 41 CFR part 60-3.