Page:Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt.pdf/20

16 and n. 7. But that version is concededly not the rule at issue—which contains cross-references to neither provision, so offers no basis for Helix’s distinction. And anyhow, Helix’s own arguments belie the import of the added cross-reference. The general rule, in both its earlier and its later versions, also cross-references §602(a) but not §604(b)—yet Helix acknowledges that both those provisions apply in that (lower-income) context. See id., at 9–11, 46. There is no reason to give different meaning to the same cross-reference scheme in the later HCE rule. The upshot is that §604(b) applies, just as §602(a) does, to the HCE and general rules alike.

There is of course a difference between the HCE and general rules; it just has nothing to do with the salary-basis requirement. As Helix notes, the HCE rule is “streamlined” as compared to the one for lower-income workers. See id., at 12, 29. But the HCE rule’s text makes clear what it is streamlined with respect to. Not salary basis, which (as just shown) is described identically for higher- and lower-income workers. Nor salary level, which is set at $455 per week for both groups. Rather, the difference is with respect to workplace duties. As noted above, lower-income employees cannot qualify as bona fide executives unless (1) their primary job is management; (2) they regularly direct the work of others; and (3) they have authority to hire and fire. See §541.100(a);. But higher-income employees need “regularly perform[]” only “one” of those “responsibilities” to so qualify. See §541.601(a). That “more flexible duties standard” eases the way to executive status, and so to exemption from the FLSA. 69 Fed. Reg. 22174. But the HCE rule’s streamlining stops at that point. Again, the rule leaves untouched the salary-basis requirement—so incorporates §604(b) as well as §602(a). And §604(b)’s focus on daily and hourly workers confirms that §602(a)—as its own text shows—pertains only to employees paid by the week (or longer). Hewitt was not.