You are an employee relations specialist at Fanny’s Fabrics, a retail fabric store with 150 full-time employees, 90 part-time employees and 10 employees currently on leave at its corporate headquarters. Bertha Buyer, one of the company’s three buyers of the fabrics sold in its stores, has worked for the company for three years. She typically works fifty hours per week and has received excellent performance reviews throughout her employment. She earns $110,000 per year. Although she is based at corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Indiana, her duties include traveling around the world to find the best fabrics, negotiating the purchases of these fabrics, and overseeing legal compliance related to the purchases. She also supervises three assistant buyers who handle smaller purchases closer to corporate headquarters. She does not hire the assistant buyers, but she prepares their annual performance reviews. Bertha’s supervisor is the vice president of operations, Victor Veepee, who insists that she utilize certain approved manufacturers and stay within certain budgetary limits in her purchases. Yesterday, Bertha told you she needs to have knee surgery and needs to take six weeks off of work. Just six months ago, she returned from a maternity leave that lasted eight weeks. Please answer the following questions:

1. Is Bertha entitled to the protections of FMLA? Explain. (50 points)

2. Is Bertha entitled to overtime for any period of time before her knee surgery? Explain. (50 points)

To receive full credit, you must explain all the rules on which you rely, explore arguments on both sides of your conclusion, and clearly state your conclusion. (Your conclusion is worth only a few points; the thoroughness of your analysis and clarity of your explanation earns the majority of the credit.)