• Not all Montana employees receive overtime wages.Office image by 6922Designer from Fotolia.com
  
  Montana labor law does not include restrictions on the number of hours an employer can require an employee to work, but it does specify the required extra pay for employees who exceed a certain number of hours in a workweek. However, federal and state laws exempt companies from having to pay overtime to workers in several categories, regardless of how many hours they work.
  
  

Hours

• Montana has no law that restricts the number of hours an employer can require an employee to work. Employers can require workers to put in any number of hours in a day or week, including weekends. Unless employees have a collective bargaining agreement or other contract with an employer that limits hours on duty, they risk losing their jobs if they refuse to work overtime.
  
  

Pay

• Many employees must receive overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week. Overtime pay is 1 1/2 times an employee's normal rate of pay. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act guarantees overtime pay for any employee who earns less than $455 a week and exceeds 40 hours. If an employee performs different job duties for one company and receives varying rates of pay as a result, the company must determine the employee's average rate of pay and use that to determine his or her overtime rate.
  
  

Sick Leave and Vacations

• If a company pays employees for sick days or vacation days, those days will not figure into the number of hours an employee worked during a week. If an employee's weekly paycheck says he or she received pay for 48 hours, but eight hours were paid vacation time, the employee does not receive overtime pay for that week.
  
  

Federal Exclusions

• According to federal law, some categories of workers may not receive overtime pay even if their employer requires them to work overtime. These categories include executives, administrative workers, professional workers and outside salespeople. Computer programmers and other workers in the computer field may be excluded from the overtime laws if they earn at least $27.63 an hour.
  
  

State Exclusions

• The overtime law does not apply to Montana farm workers. A Montana amusement park or other recreational area that employs students on a seasonal basis and provides them with board or lodging can establish a standard workweek of 48 hours. If those employees work more than 48 hours, they must receive overtime pay at 1 1/2 times their normal rate.
  
  

Police Officers and Firefighters

• The FLSA sets forth different rules relating to overtime pay for police officers and firefighters, and Montana follows these regulations. Agencies can set up work periods that range from seven to 28 days and pay overtime only if workers exceed a specified number of hours in those periods. In the case of a firefighter, for example, he would have to exceed 53 hours in a seven-day period to receive overtime pay.