(a) The overtime pay exemption provided by section 7(b)(3) is “limited to 12 hours a day and 56 hours a week” in any workweek; the exemption is provided “for employment up to 12 hours in any workday and up to 56 hours in any workweek” without any payment for overtime hours at one and one-half times the regular rate being required. However, the exemption from any such time-and-one-half payment is limited to workweeks when “no more” than the specified hours are worked and is contingent on payment to the employee in such a workweek of “compensation for hours between 40 and 56” at a rate “not less than one and one-half times the applicable minimum wage.” (H. Rept. No. 1366, pp. 12-13, 43, and S. Rept. No. 1487, p. 32, 89th Cong., second sess.) Thus, the exemption will be applicable to an employee otherwise eligible under the principles previously discussed in this part in any workweek when his hours of work do not exceed 12 in any day or 56 in the week if, and only if, his “compensation for employment in excess of forty hours” is “at a rate not less than one and one-half times the minimum wage rate applicable to him under section 6”, as provided in section 7(b)(3). This means that in addition to the requirement of section 6, under which the first 40 hours of work must be paid for at a rate not less than the minimum hourly wage rate therein specified, the compensation requirements applicable to such an employee for whom the 7(b)(3) exemption is claimed include any increase in his regular straight-time pay rate for the hours worked in excess of 40 which may be necessary in order to raise the wage rate for such hours to a level of 50 percent above the rate required under section 6. Of course, if the employee is employed at a regular straight-time rate for all his hours of work which is as great or greater than one and one-half times the minimum wage applicable to him under section 6, no increase for the hours in excess of 40 will be required under the provisions of section 7(b)(3).

(b) The general minimum wage rate applicable to employees in employment that was subject to the minimum wage provisions of the Act prior to the effective date of the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966 is $1.60 an hour. Under section 7(b)(3) an employee of a wholesale or bulk petroleum products distributor to whom this rate is applicable must be paid at least $2.40 an hour for hours worked in excess of 40 in the workweek in order for the exemption to apply. Many employees of such distributors are subject to the $1.60 minimum wage rate under section 6 either because they are traditionally covered as employees individually engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce as defined in the Act or because the enterprise coverage provisions in effect prior to the 1966 amendments (applicable to enterprises with an annual gross volume of $1 million or more including excise taxes) would subject their employment to the minimum wage provisions if the 1966 amendments had not been enacted. In the case, however, of an employee of such a distributor whose employment comes within the minimum wage provisions only because of the 1966 amendments (which reduced the annual gross volume for covered enterprises to $500,000 on Feb. 1, 1967, and to $250,000 on Feb. 1, 1969, exclusive of specified separately stated excise taxes at the retail level), the minimum wage rate applicable under section 6 was $1.30 an hour until February 1, 1970, when it increased to $1.45 an hour. Beginning February 1, 1971, the minimum wage rate applicable to such an employee will be the same ($1.60 an hour) as that presently applicable to employment covered by the provisions of the prior Act. For employees subject to the $1.30 minimum wage rate the rate required for work over 40 hours under section 7(b)(3) was accordingly $1.95 an hour; for those subject to the $1.45 rate beginning February 1, 1970, such rate is $2.175. A discussion of the present and prior coverage of the Act will be found in part 776 of this chapter, when a revision of such part discussing enterprise coverage is published.