Stock Value Calculating stock options into a worker's base pay is creating debate.

Negotiations are underway between small-business groups and theLabor Department about including stock options in the calculationof base pay to figure out the overtime pay of hourly workers.

The Labor Department's Wage and Hour division (WHD) shook upthe business community after it found out about an"opinion" letter from the division to an unnamed company,which told the company it couldn't exclude profits made fromthe sale of stock options from an hourly employee's base pay(or "regular rate" in Labor Department parlance).

But business groups don't consider stock options part of anemployee's regular rate-and therefore excluded them from thetime-and-a-half calculation. T. Michael Kerr, administrator of theWHD, says the letter "didn't make a general statement onwhether all stock option programs do or should affect the regularrate, nor was it intended to do so."