On August 23, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2021 regulation by the U.S. Department of Labor restricting employers’ use of the tip credit for tipped employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
Many employers make the mistake of assuming that employees can be treated as exempt so long as they have certain job titles or are paid a salary rather than an hourly wage. That error is especially common in small businesses...more
After a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas blocked the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule as it pertains to Texas state employees, another judge in the Northern District of Texas declined to issue a similar...more
7/3/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On Friday, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction sought by the State of Texas to block implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule increasing minimum salaries for overtime exempt employee....more
With the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule set to go into effect on July 1 and no ruling yet on the state of Texas’s motion to put the rule on hold, employers will need to decide what to do with exempt employees whose minimum...more
The clock is quickly ticking down to July 1, when the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule increasing the minimum salary for many employees to be considered exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act is supposed...more
6/26/2024
/ Deadlines ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Popular ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
In a recent decision, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the standard for determining whether an adverse employment action is a sufficient basis for a discrimination claim under Title VII of the...more
6/10/2024
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
Earlier this month, the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection published the final rules supporting Chicago’s new Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance. Both the ordinance and the rules go...more
A common question for schools assessing how to comply with the new overtime exemption rule published by the U.S. DOL is what to do about coaches and athletic trainers in light of the new minimum salary requirement for the...more
5/14/2024
/ Coaches ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Sports ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
In April, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released two long-awaited final documents aimed at strengthening worker protections: the final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA, or...more
5/8/2024
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Reform ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Title VII ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
The U.S. Department of Labor recently published new final regulations that increase the minimum salary level for most employees to be considered exempt under the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions to the...more
On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor issued final regulations updating the minimum salary threshold for employees to be considered exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
On March 14, 2024, the Cook County Board of Commissioners passed an amendment to the new Cook County Paid Leave Ordinance and approved the final draft of proposed rules under the Ordinance. The new amendment, effective...more
On January 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new final rule revising the test for whether workers are considered to be employees versus independent contractors for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
1/10/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Misclassification ,
Over-Time ,
Wage and Hour
In November 2023, the Chicago City Council passed the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, dramatically expanding the city’s existing paid sick leave ordinance to require employers to provide an...more
Earlier this month, the EEOC released proposed regulations to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA,” or the “Act”), which we initially wrote about. (The proposed rule can be found on the Federal Register’s...more
8/30/2023
/ Breastfeeding ,
Comment Period ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Labor Reform ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation
Under a new amendment to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act, Illinois employers and staffing agencies will be required to provide temporary workers pay and benefits equal to certain directly-hired employees...more
In Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court set aside nearly five decades of precedent holding that an employer could deny an employee’s request for a religious accommodation under Title VII if the...more
In April, the Illinois Department of Labor published new regulations regarding the expense reimbursement requirements in Section 9.5 of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. The Act requires an employer to reimburse...more
5/3/2023
/ Business Expenses ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Illinois ,
Labor Reform ,
New Regulations ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Reimbursements ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Governor Pritzker has signed into law the recently passed “Paid Leave for All Workers Act” (“PLAWA”), guaranteeing paid time off for virtually all working Illinoisans. Set to go into effect on January 1, 2024, the PLAWA will...more
In a reminder that it takes more than a big paycheck to be exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the U.S. Supreme Court held in Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt that a...more
2/28/2023
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc v Hewitt No 21-984 ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Over-Time ,
SCOTUS ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the 2023 Omnibus Spending Bill into law. Buried in the legislation were two new laws providing additional protection for pregnant and nursing employees in the workplace: the...more
1/12/2023
/ Breastfeeding ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Labor Reform ,
New Legislation ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation
On April 27, 2022, the Chicago City Council approved several substantive amendments to the sexual harassment provisions of the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance. The amendments impose new and expanded harassment training...more
6/7/2022
/ #MeToo ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Corporate Culture ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Human Rights ,
Illinois ,
Labor Reform ,
Local Ordinance ,
New Amendments ,
Sexual Harassment
Schools and districts throughout the State – and country – are beginning this school week on the heels of a flurry of announcements made last Friday by the CDC, the Illinois Supreme Court, Governor Pritzker and ISBE,...more
2/28/2022
/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Health and Safety ,
Illinois ,
Infectious Diseases ,
ISBE ,
Masks ,
Personal Protective Equipment ,
Public Schools ,
School Districts ,
Students ,
TRO ,
Workplace Safety
In the wake of last week’s Appellate Court ruling, Governor Pritzker and the other state defendants have taken their appeal of the February 4, 2022 TRO regarding school COVID-19 mitigation measures to the Illinois Supreme...more
2/28/2022
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Governor Pritzker ,
Health and Safety ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Illinois ,
Leave to Appeal ,
Masks ,
Mootness ,
Public Schools ,
School Districts ,
Students ,
TRO ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety