Doesn't really matter. The IRS rules are the rules, the business type is immaterial.
That most businesses in aviation get away with it, is also immaterial to his point.
Let's use another example: The IT field gets away with breaking overtime rules ALL the time. Didn't matter in the slightest when a former employer of mine was hit with a very well documented complaint about it after a layoff.
They not only paid the maid off person handsomely (three years of overtime at time and a half on top of his severance), and a fine to the State agency overseeing the complaint, they immediately made a number of us who were formerly listed as exempt into hourly employees at a REALLY high hourly rate.
I loved that job. There was always 80 hours of work to be done if you wanted it, every week. I didn't, but anytime I wanted cash for a personal goal, holy hell it was easy to get.
That (truly awful and useless) former co-worker who kept all those OCD notes about hours and who told them they had to do things and all that for a few YEARS made me a ****-ton of money. Like nearly doubling my salary for years after that layoff.
Methinks the company would have been way better off cash-wise not to have let him go, by multiples of his salary. But they didn't know he was building a case. All it took was him knowing the law and them breaking it, and them giving him a reason to sue. Word was the judge listened to the company attorneys from out of State for about ten minutes and ruled. The State law they were breaking wasn't unclear or imprecise.
