Are oilfield workers paid a day rate, by the foot or a salary owed overtime? Usually, yes. A day rate isn’t a salary, piece-rate pay still carries overtime, a salary doesn’t make a hands-on field job exempt, and a 1099 doesn’t make you a contractor. Siegel Law Group has won certification for casing crews, pressure control operators, MWD operators, wireline crews, pump hands and field hands in federal courts in Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota.
You run pipe on a two-week hitch, the check says “day rate” or “per foot,” and nobody counts the hours past 40. That pay plan is what we’ve been taking to federal court since 2015, for people who do the hard, long work and expect a fair check for it.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek unless an exemption applies, and the employer has to prove the exemption. Oilfield pay plans usually try to get around that rule in one of four ways.
A flat amount per day, no matter how many hours. Companies call it “like a salary.” The Supreme Court disagreed. In Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt (2023), a rig worker earned more than $200,000 a year on a day rate with no overtime. The Court held 6–3 that a worker paid by the day is not paid on a salary basis, so the white-collar exemptions don’t apply, unless the employer also guarantees a weekly amount that meets a separate regulation.12 As the Court put it, “A daily-rate worker’s weekly pay is always a function of how many days he has labored.”1
For a non-exempt day-rate worker, the overtime math comes from a Labor Department rule: add up the week’s day-rate pay, divide by every hour worked that week to get the regular rate, then pay an extra half of that rate for each hour over 40.3 Example only: $400 a day for seven 12-hour days is $2,800 for 84 hours, a regular rate of about $33.33. The 44 hours over 40 add about $733 in half-time for that one week.
Casing crews and tong crews are often paid by the foot of pipe laid, by the joint, or by the job. That’s legal. Skipping overtime on it isn’t. For piece-rate pay, the regular rate is total weekly earnings from piece rates and other sources, such as production bonuses, divided by all hours worked, and the worker is owed an extra half-time for each hour over 40.4 Job rates follow the same divide-by-hours rule as day rates.3 None of it works if the company never counts the hours.
Bonuses matter here too. The FLSA’s regular rate includes “all remuneration for employment” unless a specific exclusion applies.5 Job bonuses, stage or ticket bonuses and safety bonuses that workers earn under a set plan generally belong in that rate. Leave them out, and every overtime hour is underpaid.
A salary alone doesn’t make anyone exempt. The duties have to fit an exemption too, and the federal rules shut the door on hands-on field work: the exemptions “do not apply to manual laborers or other ‘blue collar’ workers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy.”6 Big pay doesn’t change that. The highly compensated test covers only employees whose primary duty includes office or non-manual work, and workers doing that kind of physical labor are not exempt under it “no matter how highly paid they might be.”7
Some companies have field hands sign contractor agreements and pay them on a 1099. The FLSA defines “employ” broadly: it “includes to suffer or permit to work.”8 Courts look at the economic reality of the work, such as who controls it, who supplies the equipment and whether the worker runs an independent business, not at the label on the paperwork.9 If the company sets your schedule, sends you to its jobs and supplies the iron, a 1099 may not hold up.
New Mexico class certification. In June 2020, in Rodriguez v. Peak Pressure Control, a federal court certified a Rule 23 class of pressure-control operators under the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act. To our knowledge, it was the first class certified under that law in federal court.10 The same day, the court rejected the administrative-exemption defense for those operators on partial summary judgment, and it appointed Jack Siegel class counsel. Read the ruling
Below are our other oilfield rulings, grouped by pay plan. Most are conditional certifications: court-approved notice that lets other workers join an FLSA collective action. The employers denied the workers’ claims, and a conditional certification is not a finding that anyone broke the law. Each line links to the case record, with the court docket.
In a July 2022 declaration filed in federal court, Jack Siegel swore that he had appeared in “more than one hundred and twenty (120) wage and hour actions filed in federal courts since 2014” and that “[t]hese cases are regularly certified as class and collective actions.” The oilfield cases he listed as examples:11
In the same declaration, he listed two oilfield cases in which federal courts approved him as class counsel: Rodriguez v. Peak Pressure Control and Key v. Butch’s Rat Hole & Anchor Service, both in the District of New Mexico.11
These are results in other people's cases. Every case depends on its own facts and law. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Probably, if you work more than 40 hours a week and your job is hands-on. After Helix, a day rate is not a salary, even above $200,000 a year, unless the company also guarantees a qualifying weekly amount.12 And field work involving physical labor is not exempt under the highly compensated test no matter the pay.7
Add up the week’s piece or job pay, plus production bonuses, divide by all hours worked, and that is the regular rate. You’re owed an extra half of it for each hour over 40.34 If nobody recorded your hours, your own records and estimates can help prove them.
Often, yes. Courts in these cases defined the groups by pay plan or duties. In Olivas, the court wrote: “But that proposed class members held different job titles does not mean that they are not similarly situated.”12
Yes, if the economic reality is that you worked as an employee. A contract or a tax form doesn’t decide it.89
Under federal law, generally two years of unpaid overtime, or three if the violation was willful, plus an equal amount in liquidated damages in most cases.13 The clock keeps running until you file. Federal law also makes it illegal to fire or discriminate against you for complaining or taking part in an overtime case.14
If you were paid a day rate, by the foot or the job, or a salary in the oilfield and routinely worked past 40 hours, tell us your job title, your employer and the state you worked in. We’ll tell you plainly whether we think you have a case.
Tell us your job, employer and state →
See also salary vs. hourly pay, how collective actions work, employers we’ve taken to court and retaliation protections.
Attorney responsible: Jack L. Siegel, Siegel Law Group PLLC, 11341 W. US Hwy 290, Bldg. 2, Austin, TX 78737. Licensed in Texas. This page is general information, not legal advice. These are results in other people's cases. Every case depends on its own facts and law. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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Attorney advertising. Jack L. Siegel of Siegel Law Group PLLC, Austin, Texas, is responsible for this content.
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