Tag Archives: 24-hour shifts

Polk County Fire Commissioners have authorized spending $9.2 million to hire an additional 75 firefighters. The hiring plan is in response to significant employee turn-over, which according to some is partly due to excessive mandatory overtime. County officials hope that the move will significantly decrease firefighter overtime. The current levels of overtime frequently require Polk County firefighters to work beyond ...

Former Lumpkin County Fire Department Battalion Chief Sharon Booth has filed suit against her former employer alleging that the county misclassified her as an overtime exempt employee in violation of the FLSA. The lawsuit, which was filed on November 30, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia contains rather straightforward claims of unpaid overtime for ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a newly appointed firefighter in a small municipal fire department. We work a 48/96 schedule and are paid every two weeks. The city has an old policy related to payroll that I do not think is FLSA compliant. If a firefighter misses any worktime during the two-week work period, they lose their FLSA overtime. Recently, ...

Fire Communication Operators that work for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department have opted to move to a 24-hour work shift. Previously, county fire operators worked a combination of 10-hour day shifts followed by 14-hour night shifts. The new 24-hour work shift model will require 24 hours on-duty and will be followed by 72 hours off-duty. Both the previous “10’s ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the fire chief of a mid-sized full-time fire department. Currently, our firefighters work 24-hour shifts; however, the firefighters’ union is proposing a move to 48-hour work shifts. I am open to the change, but I am concerned about firefighter fatigue and the effects of working shifts longer than 48 hours. We do not have a ...