Page:Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt.pdf/9

Rh basis requirement” or “losing the [bona fide executive] exemption” so long as two conditions are met. First, the employer must “also” guarantee the employee at least $455 each week (the minimum salary level) “regardless of the number of hours, days or shifts worked.” Ibid. And second, that promised amount must bear a “reasonable relationship” to the “amount actually earned” in a typical week—more specifically, must be “roughly equivalent to the employee’s usual earnings at the assigned hourly, daily or shift rate for the employee’s normal scheduled workweek.” Ibid. Those conditions create a compensation system functioning much like a true salary—a steady stream of pay, which the employer cannot much vary and the employee may thus rely on week after week. See 69 Fed. Reg. 22184 (explaining that §604(b)’s conditions ensure that daily or hourly pay is “[]consistent with the salary basis concept”).

From 2014 to 2017, respondent Michael Hewitt worked for petitioner Helix Energy Solutions Group as a “tool-pusher” on an offshore oil rig. Reporting to the captain, Hewitt oversaw various aspects of the rig’s operations and supervised 12 to 14 workers. He typically, but not invariably, worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week—so 84 hours a week—during a 28-day “hitch.” He then had 28 days off before reporting back to the vessel.

Helix paid Hewitt on a daily-rate basis, with no overtime compensation. The daily rate ranged, over the course of his employment, from $963 to $1,341 per day. His paycheck, issued every two weeks, amounted to his daily rate times the number of days he had worked in the pay period. So if Hewitt had worked only one day, his paycheck would total (at the range’s low end) $963; but if he had worked all 14 days, his paycheck would come to $13,482. Under that compensation scheme, Helix paid Hewitt over $200,000 annually.