After this month’s completion of a year-long review of low-level professional jobs, the University has changed the status of approximately 700 Harvard employees so that they are now eligible to earn overtime pay. As part of these changes many of these employees are also now eligible to become union members.

Human resource offices in the University’s various schools began contacting affected employees last week.

The change comes as a result of the University’s efforts to ensure its compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a New Deal era federal law that regulates many aspects of employment practices.

Specifically, Harvard reviewed its compliance with the portions of the law concerning overtime benefits.

While the law mandates that most employees be paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours per week, it exempts employers from making such payments to individuals in jobs that handle certain administrative or decision-making tasks.

Through its study, Harvard determined that some of these employees previously considered “exempt” did not perform duties consistent with this classification. As a result Harvard will now consider these employees as “non-exempt” and thus eligible for overtime payments.

This non-exempt status means that many of the reclassified employees will become eligible to join the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW). However, none of the employees will be forced to join.

“This is a very positive move,” said HUCTW Director Bill Jaeger. “There are lots of good feelings in our organization [about the reclassification effort].”