This is a huge problem. I wish I understood the reasoning behind the sweeping decision.

It's because the Obama Administration wants to incentivize employers to lay off as many people as possible and to give any remaining employees as few hours as possible.They're doing their best to redirect as much of the economy into their own ambit.

In other words, more Hope and Change.

In a nutshell, the case that brought this to a head involved a CVS Pharmacy employee who was hired as a salaried manager (at a redicilously low salary) but who worked 60+ hours a week, often filling in for hourly employees who didn't show up. She sued claiming that she was doing work not specified in her contract as a part of her responsibilities and claiming that she was entitled to overtime pay as a result.

He Who Must Not Be Named issued an executive order in 2015 instructing the DOL to revise its regs governing salary thresholds and definitions of salaried versus hourly employees as well as the definitions of executive, managerial, supervisor and professional.

Never let a good crisis go to waste so as to allow the government to overreach.

In a nutshell, the case that brought this to a head involved a CVS Pharmacy employee who was hired as a salaried manager (at a redicilously low salary) but who worked 60+ hours a week, often filling in for hourly employees who didn't show up. She sued claiming that she was doing work not specified in her contract as a part of her responsibilities and claiming that she was entitled to overtime pay as a result.

He Who Must Not Be Named issued an executive order in 2015 instructing the DOL to revise its regs governing salary thresholds and definitions of salaried versus hourly employees as well as the definitions of executive, managerial, supervisor and professional.

Never let a good crisis go to waste so as to allow the government to overreach.

Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction. This happens all the time in our jobs: legitimate problem, lawsuit threatened/prosecuted, rules change so lawsuit doesn't matter anymore. previously illegal/unethical practice is now ok/management backside covered.

Occasional musicians, usually including choir section leaders, are generally paid as 1099 self-employed musicians. (I know - that's a whole other discussion!)

FWIW, there are some parishes pay regular musicians a set number of hours per week/paycheck. I guess you could call it a faux salary.

It looks like the IRS is directing things to the "Corporation Sole", and probably won't be able to get all the way down into the parochial level. Most Diocese have gone to using universal offsite payroll processing companies - universal in that EVERY Diocesan entity MUST use this same service so that reports on employees' payroll, health insurance, and retirement accounts are easily accessible to the Diocese, and from there to the IRS.

There is a check list - actually two check lists - published by the IRS. If a person fulfills like 10 of the 15 questions, he/she is probably an employee. OTOH, if a person fulfills ANY of the other questions, he/she is probably an independent contractor. It has been a gray area for decades. The only hard and fast rule is that no person may be paid by one employer as both employee AND contractor at the same time. And this holds true for all employers.

The guidance for non-profits issued by the DOL says that while an employee may be hourly, they don't have to "punch the clock," and there are various options for how it can happen. The regulations require tracking how many hours are worked in a week, but not which specific hours are worked in a given week.

It's going to take a lot of time and effort for HR departments to slog through all of this crap and sort it out.

It's a waste of time and money and a (wait for it) distraction from other things being done to us.

Or, move basically all your planning to summer. As much as possible, make worship aids, download each week's Psalms, etc. Frontload the whole organizational component of the job.

Another related problem not part of the linked webpage. Reporting hours for benefits determination is another item to be managed. If during the Current year a threshold is crossed during a period then the employer must in the Next year offer benefits.

Our parish does not pay for personal practice time. I don't think most parishes do either.

You are interpreting correctly. We don't get paid for practice time on our instruments. We do have dues paid to professional organizations for memberships and there is a budget for continuing education and attending conferences - at the Pastor's discretion. I do think this is fair.

I don't see how you can automatically call the time worked during attending a conference as overtime pay exposure. These hours are almost certainly incurred IN PLACE OF hours worked on the campus of the parish - unless you've figured a way to bilocate!

I agree that IRS auditors are not going to show up on doorsteps without reasonable cause. On a more basic issue, we musicians (or any other positions) agree to the working conditions with our God-given free will. If we don't like those conditions we also have the free will to look for another position elsewhere.

And we don't need the stinking Federal Government interfering in that process.

As to receiving pay for "personal practice time", I'm quite sure you will not find any other professional musicians, even under Musicians' Union rules, receiving compensation for private, personal practice time. Group rehearsals, performances, and anything else agreed upon in the musicians' contract. I don't believe it should be any different for church musicians.

Well, I'll just say that I stopped having anything to do with the AGO many years ago. I don't agree with most of what they stand for. Maybe they serve their mainstream Protestant denominations' organist really well, but I want nothing to do with them; They don't speak for me in any way, shape, or form.

Again, other professional performers, even represented by unions (another entity that I want nothing to do with) do not get paid for personal practice time. I see no reason why church musicians should be treated differently.

If that is the case for organists, then they are a special breed of musicians. Nobody else gets paid, on the clock, for personal practice time. Even the choirs that get paid for rehearsals are not paid individually to learn their parts before the come to rehearsal. Indeed, I hear complaints from all sorts of musical groups about individuals showing up not knowing their parts, and using rehearsal time as practice time - and that is not considered professional attitude.

As to all of your concerns in the last paragraph, I feel sorry for anyone who has to put up with new and different liturgical timings constantly! Our Mass timings are very constant, as I believe they should be.

That's about what we pay cantors as well, but not as full- or part-time employees. It includes, maybe, a run-through before the Liturgy begins, but NOT their learning the repertoire in the first place, much less keeping their vocal technique sharp. That is their musicianship that they bring to the workplace.

Unless you are considering $200 way more than enough for the actual performance, and therefore including some compensation for their own preparation time. But you and the church have not control over that time actually being spent. You are simply hiring a competent musician who has a track record of good performances. The $200 was for the actual performance, no matter what they needed to do to be prepared for it.

the sevice is 15 - 60 minutes. Compensation pays them both to learn the music beforehand and to perform it well for the liturgy. They don't get $200 an hour.

Yes, and it should not matter if it is an employee or not. Practice is practice, and it is for the performance of music in the job that requires the practice.

If you practice for free, you are being taken advantage of. The only thing I WILL NOT do on company time is compose music, because then they own it... unless they are paying me a handsome per hour fee (Work for Hire). No one will own my comps except me (on behalf of God). Publishers... for the most part, leaches of the creative enterprise until they fairly share the wealth and stop keeping creatives captive.

I would practice anyway whether it be considered "on the clock" time and I suspect most musicians do the same. A block of my time includes scheduling, collecting music for distribution to singers, arranging rehearsals and facilities, and other administrative duties. Practice is somewhere in the admin stuff and not broken out as a separate entity.

Right. If all the prescribed duties of the position are up to snuff, then practice away. I just don't believe anyone should expect that personal practice be included in a job description.

It's like your job description specifies X,Y, and Z that you will be paid for. Your doing A,B, and C to maintain proficiency levels of L, M, and N in order to perform X,Y, and Z is your responsibility - not your employer's.

Apologies if my AGO comments don't help, but I do not feel that the AGO helps us as Catholic musicians. I was a member back when I was also building and maintaining pipe organs while also playing organ at Mass. I dropped out way back then as I found everything they do of no use to me. All of their "business" directions are aimed at the type of performances required at Protestant churches and the employer/employee relationships the ensue. I do not believe the Catholic churches need to emulate that. We emulate enough Protestantism in our modern Liturgies.

don't see how you can automatically call the time worked during attending a conference as overtime pay exposure

Not what I meant. But my terminology was unclear.

Conferences/workshops (etc.) can be pretty intense. AM session from 9-noon, PM session from 2-6, then evening session 7:30-9. That's 8.5 hours. And of course, travel time is "clock time" for salaried and hourly people.

By "exposure" I meant "risk"--and in the case outlined above, assuming 6 hours travel each way and a 4-day "conference," you have 46 hours total worked. That is certainly NOT the case for every conference/workshop--but it's not uncommon.

First off, I'm not an organist.

Now that that's out of the way..

I am primarily an instrumentalist - one which requires me to basically remake the main component of my instrument on a semi-regular basis.

One simply can't call oneself a professional musician if one only practices when compensated. I'm not sure one would truly be a musician at all, with those requirements, but simply a hobbyist.
Scales, arpeggios, various musical techniques appropriate to the instrument throughout history, etc. for any instrument/voice is necessary whether there is money in it or not. (This being said by someone waiting her full postnatal time before playing her instrument, just in case.)

That's sort of like a music teacher insisting on getting paid for his own practice time so that he'll be up to snuff for teaching. It's part of the job. Musicians must practice, period. We can't hold professional sound hostage and still claim to be professionals.

It might be useful to differentiate practicing that is required for the daily/weekly execution of one's position from practicing that is directed at more 'personal' goals, but from which one's job performance would certainly benefit. At the Episcopal parish where I am proud to serve, I need to prepare each week 4 hymns—and we cover a huge part of the Hymnal 1982 (loud boos?) and introduce new hymns fairly frequently— and at least 3 pieces of what we call 'service music' (i. e. the Episcopal equivalent of the Ordinary) in addition to the choral anthem if it is accompanied, and a suitable prelude and postlude (in the tradition of 'big' preludes and postludes—typically 4-5 minutes each, with 'bigger' works to mark the big occasions).

My position is described as a 3/8 position, and it is expected for the purposes of my contract that my job can be performed in 15 hours a week, split between rehearsing the ensembles, doing all of the administrative stuff (planning, filing, maintaining the music pages on the website, planning the church's recital series, etc...) and, yes, practicing. I can choose to play music already in my repertoire and be content with my current level of proficiency at the organ (really, I'm pretty good), and easily fit practice time and other responsibilities into my expected 15 hours, but if I want to continue to expand my repertoire and skills (and which one of us doesn't feel this way?) it is my choice to practice outside of the allotted 15 hours. Which, of course, I do!

(And of course, I put in significantly more than my 'expected' 15 hours most weeks, regardless. As I'm sure we all do.)

(And of course, I put in significantly more than my 'expected' 15 hours most weeks, regardless. As I'm sure we all do.)

I put in more than my expected time, as well. I suspect we all do. One thing I have consistently said is that if I needed the money in the first place, I couldn't afford to work in church music.

However, I have concluded that most non-musicians have no idea what we do. They don't know how long it took to arrive at the point where we can play those pieces we play. Of course it looks effortless. It generally does for people who know what they are doing, and that is true in most fields.

What we need is a whiskey allowance for dealing with some of the "Christians" we are afflicted with. No wonder Nero wanted to kill them!