It is common practice for companies to misclassify employees in order to be exempt from paying overtime. Employers are required to pay time-and-a-half to employees who work over 40 hours per week. However, those employees classified as "managers" are exempt from the overtime pay.

As a result, many workers find themselves taking on the added responsibilities of management while lacking most managerial privileges.

In Illinois, a group of former Home Depot employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the company to win overtime pay. Home Depot classified the employees as assistant managers in order to be exempt from having to pay them the time-and-a-half overtime pay.

Despite being called assistant managers, the Home Depot workers had no power to hire or fire or give input to staffing decisions.

Robert McCoppin of the <A HREF=http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=308495>Daily Herald</A> reports: "Home Depot's policy, according to the suit, was to fire assistant store managers if they worked less than 11 hours a day. The assistant store managers were also not paid overtime during their training period of two to eight weeks."