“Can we avoid overtime by paying employee as an independent contractor for a ‘second’ job?”

Q. "We have an employee who works in our shipping department 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  After 5 p.m., he spends two to three hours cleaning the bathrooms, offices and lunch room. We, of course, would not like to have to pay overtime for these hours he works cleaning. He punches out at 5 p.m. and I pay him separately as an independent contractor for his cleaning hours. I have been told by our CFO that we cannot do this for overtime reasons. Can we?" -- M.M., North Carolina