I am a Graduate Assistant at a private university (Location: Virginia). I am concerned that I am being misclassified as a "student" to avoid FLSA minimum wage and overtime requirements. My role has no correlation to my degree or field of study.
My Compensation: $7,500 over 10 months ($750/month) & Housing and meals provided since i am required to live on campus. No tuition remission (it was recently converted to taxable income), this was changed 2 years before I got the position.
My responsibilities are 20 hours/week of scheduled office hours and a 7-day, 24/7 rotation on-call rotation typically every 3 weeks. While on-call I must remain within a 10-minute radius of campus at all times and be able to respond physically within 10 minutes. This effectively prevents me from leaving a very small radius, sleeping soundly, or engaging in personal activities during on-call weeks. Additionally I supervise undergraduate Resident Assistants and serve as the primary first responder for most residential incidents. My main questions are:
1.) Does a 10-minute response/distance restriction legally classify my on-call time as "hours worked" under the FLSA? If so, I am working 168 hours during on-call weeks.
2.) Since my work replaces full-time staff and is unrelated to my academics, do I qualify as an "employee" rather than a "student worker"?
3.) Virginia’s minimum wage is $12.77/hr. My stipend of $750/month breaks down to roughly $9.38/hr for just my 20 required office hours. This means that even before adding a single minute of my 24/7 on-call responsibilities, I am already being paid significantly below the state minimum wage. If the 10-minute on-call weeks are legally compensable as "engaged to wait," my effective pay drops to roughly $1.11/hr. Given that I am below both the state minimum wage and the federal salary threshold for exempt employees ($684/week), how should I approach the University or the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) regarding back pay?