SUBCHAPTER V-PREMIUM PAY $5541. Definitions For the purpose of this subchapter(1) "agency" means— (A) an Executive agency; (B) a military department; (C) an agency in the judicial branch; (E) the Botanic Garden; (F) the Office of the Architect of the Capitol; and (2) "employee" means (A) an employee in or under an Executive agency; (B) an individual employed by the government of the District of Columbia; and (C) an employee in or under the judicial branch, the Library of Congress, the Botanic Garden, and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol, who occupies a position subject to chapter 51 and subchapter III of chapter 53 of this title; but does not include (i) a justice or judge of the United States; (ii) the head of an agency other than the government of the District of Columbia; (iii) a teacher, school official, or employee of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, whose pay is fixed under chapter 15 of title 31, District of Columbia Code; (iv) a member of (I) the Metropolitan Police or the Fire Department of the District of Columbia; or (II) a member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division, a member of the United States Park Police, other than for purposes of section 5545(a) and 5546; (v) a student-employee as defined by section 5351 of this title; [(vi) Repealed. Pub. L. 91-375, §6(c)(16), Aug. 12, 1970, 84 Stat. 776;] (vii) an employee outside the continental United States or in Alaska who is paid in accordance with local native prevailing wage rates for the area in which employed; (viii) an employee of the Tennessee Valley Authority; (ix) an individual to whom section 1291(a) of title 50, appendix, applies; (x) an employee of a Federal land bank, a Federal intermediate credit bank, or a bank for cooperatives; (xi) an employee whose pay is fixed and adjusted from time to time in accordance with prevailing rates under subchapter IV of chapter 53 of this title, or by a wage board or similar administrative authority serving the same purpose, except as provided by section 5544 of this title; (xii) an employee of the Transportation Corps of the Army on a vessel operated by the United States, a vessel employee of the Environmental Science Services Administration, or a vessel employee of the Department of the Interior; (xiii) a "teacher" or an individual holding a "teaching position" as defined by section 901 of title 20; (xiv) a Foreign Service officer; (xv) a member of the Senior Foreign Service; (xvi) member of the Senior Executive Service; or (xvii) a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration Senior Executive Service; and (3) "law enforcement officer" means an employee who (A) is a law enforcement officer within the meaning of section 8331(20) or 8401(17); (B) in the case of an employee who holds a supervisory or administrative position and is subject to subchapter III of chapter 83, but who does not qualify to be considered a law enforcement officer within the meaning of section 8331(20), would so qualify if such employee had transferred directly to such position after serving as a law enforcement officer within the meaning of such section; (C) in the case of an employee who holds a supervisory or administrative position and is subject to chapter 84, but who does not qualify to be considered a law enforcement officer within the meaning of section 8401(17), would so qualify if such employee had transferred directly to such position after performing duties described in section 8401(17) (A) and (B) for at least 3 years; and (D) in the case of an employee who is not subject to subchapter III of chapter 83 or chapter 84 (i) holds a position that the Office of Personnel Management determines would satisfy subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) if the employee were subject to subchapter III of chapter 83 or chapter 84; or (ii) is a special agent in the Diplomatic Security Service. § 5542. Overtime rates; computation (a) For full-time, part-time and intermittent tours of duty, hours of work officially ordered or approved in excess of 40 hours in an administrative workweek, or (with the exception of an employee engaged in professional or technical engineering or scientific activities for whom the first 40 hours of duty in an administrative workweek is the basic workweek and an employee whose basic pay exceeds the minimum rate for GS-10 (including any applicable lo cality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law) for whom the first 40 hours of duty in an administrative workweek is the basic workweek) in excess of 8 hours in a day, performed by an employee are overtime work and shall be paid for, except as otherwise provided by this subchapter, at the following rates: (1) For an employee whose basic pay is at a rate which does not exceed the minimum rate of basic pay for GS-10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to one and one-half times the hourly rate of basic pay of the employee, and all that amount is premium pay. (2) For an employee whose basic pay is at a rate which exceeds the minimum rate of basic pay for GS-10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to one and one-half times the hourly rate of the minimum rate of basic pay for GS10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), and all that amount is premium pay. (3) Notwithstanding paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection for an employee of the Department of Transportation who occupies a nonmanagerial position in GS-14 or under and, as determined by the Secretary of Transportation, (A) the duties of which are critical to the immediate daily operation of the air traffic control system, directly affect aviation safety, and involve physical or mental strain or hardship; (B) in which overtime work is therefore unusually taxing; and (C) in which operating requirements cannot be met without substantial overtime work; the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to one and one-half times the hourly rate of basic pay of the employee, and all that amount is premium pay. (4) Notwithstanding paragraph (2) of this subsection, for an employee who is a law enforcement officer, and whose basic pay is at a rate which exceeds the minimum rate of basic pay for GS-10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to the greater of (A) one and one-half times the minimum hourly rate of basic pay for GS-10 (including any applicable localitybased comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law); or (B) the hourly rate of basic pay of the employee, and all that amount is premium pay. (b) For the purpose of this subchapter (1) unscheduled overtime work performed by an employee on a day when work was not scheduled for him, or for which he is required to return to his place of employment, is deemed at least 2 hours in duration; and (2) time spent in a travel status away from the officialduty station of an employee is not hours of employment unless (A) the time spent is within the days and hours of the regularly scheduled administrative workweek of the employee, including regularly scheduled overtime hours; or (B) the travel (i) involves the performance of work while traveling, (ii) is incident to travel that involves the performance of work while traveling, (iii) is carried out under arduous conditions, or (iv) results from an event which could not be scheduled or controlled administratively, including travel by an employee to such an event and the return of such employee from such event to his or her official-duty station. (c) Subsection (a) shall not apply to an employee who is subject to the overtime pay provisions of section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In the case of an employee who would, were it not for the preceding sentence, be subject to this section, the Office of Personnel Management shall by regulation prescribe what hours shall be deemed to be hours of work and what hours of work shall be deemed to be overtime hours for the purpose of such section 7 so as to ensure that no employee receives less pay by reason of the preceding sentence. (d) In applying subsection (a) of this section with respect to any criminal investigator who is paid availability pay under section 5545a (1) such investigator shall be compensated under such subsection (a), at the rates there provided, for overtime work which is scheduled in advance of the administrative workweek (A) in excess of 10 hours on a day during such investigator's basic 40 hour workweek; or (B) on a day outside such investigator's basic 40 hour workweek; and (2) such investigator shall be compensated for all other overtime work under section 5545a. (e) Notwithstanding subsection (d)(1) of this section, all hours of overtime work scheduled in advance of the administrative workweek shall be compensated under subsection (a) if that work involves duties as authorized by section 3056(a) of title 18 or section 37(a)(3) of the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956, and if the investigator performs, on that same day, at least 2 hours of overtime work not scheduled in advance of the administrative workweek. (f) In applying subsection (a) of this section with respect to a firefighter who is subject to section 5545b (1) such subsection shall be deemed to apply to hours of work officially ordered or approved in excess of 106 hours in a biweekly pay period, or, if the agency establishes a weekly basis for overtime pay computation, in excess of 53 hours in an administrative workweek; and (2) the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to one and one-half times the hourly rate of basic pay under section 5545b (b)(1)(A) or (c)(1)(B), as applicable, and such overtime hourly rate of pay may not be less than such hourly rate of basic pay in applying the limitation on the overtime rate provided in paragraph (2) of such subsection (a). § 5543. Compensatory time off (a) The head of an agency may (1) on request of an employee, grant the employee compensatory time off from his scheduled tour of duty instead of payment under section 5542 or section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for an equal amount of time spent in irregular or occasional overtime work; and (2) provide that an employee whose rate of basic pay is in excess of the maximum rate of basic pay for GS-10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law) shall be granted compensatory time off from his scheduled tour of duty equal to the amount of time spent in irregular or occasional overtime work instead of being paid for that work under section 5542 of this title. (b) The head of an agency may, on request of an employee, grant the employee compensatory time off from the employee's scheduled tour of duty instead of payment under section 5544 or section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for an equal amount of time spent in irregular or occasional overtime work. An agency head may not require an employee to be compensated for overtime work with an equivalent amount of compensatory time-off from the employee's tour of duty. (c) The Architect of the Capitol may grant an employee paid on an annual basis compensatory time off from duty instead of overtime pay for overtime work. § 5544. Wage-board overtime and Sunday rates; computation (a) An employee whose pay is fixed and adjusted from time to time in accordance with prevailing rates under section 5343 or 5349 of this title, or by a wage board or similar administrative authority serving the same purpose, is entitled to overtime pay for overtime work in excess of 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. However, an employee subject to this subsection who regularly is required to remain at or within the confines of his post of duty in excess of 8 hours a day in a standby or on-call status is entitled to overtime pay only for hours of duty, exclusive of eating and sleeping time, in excess of 40 a week. The overtime hourly rate of pay is computed as follows: |