It seems every week another call center case pops up. These are extremely dangerous cases for employers and that is why I keep writing (or, harping) about them, as a warning to employers, not only those who operate call...more
The world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us and charging fast, “invading” every aspect of human endeavor. Well, the world of wage hour regulation is no different and now the USDOL has reacted with guidance on the...more
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has published a Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) on the application of federal labor standards to employers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated...more
Under the FLSA, for training time to not be counted as working hours, there are specific conditions that must be met. If all four of these conditions are not met, then the time is compensable. These factors are: 1) no work...more
With some help from Charles Dickens. Marlie was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge...more
Now that the clocks have changed for the ending of Daylight Savings Time (DST) there may be overtime implications for employers, especially for those employees who work graveyard or overnight shifts. As clocks are set an...more
Employers who rely on their workers to identify and report overtime as a prerequisite for payment may be setting themselves up for significant liability. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently reminded...more
A federal district court applied the wrong legal test when it held on summary judgment that oil rig workers were not entitled to compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for the time they spent changing into and...more
In Tyger v. Precision Drilling Corp., the Third Circuit Court of Appeals clarified the circumstances under which donning and doffing activities by employees may be compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). ...more
It seems every other week there is a call center case involving preliminary and postliminary working time. Now, it is a Wayfair call center. The customer service workers allege that the booting up of their computers and...more
In any FLSA lawsuit involving unionized workers, the defense lawyer must always look for a preemption defense. That means that the lawsuit is not properly before a Judge because it involves union contract interpretation, the...more
Another working time case where the allegation is workers being compelled to work through lunch. Seems that the health care industry is prone to this as I have blogged about on other occasions. A group of employees has been...more
I read an interesting blog post by Seyfarth Shaw on a working time case in a call center. I have often blogged about working time cases, preliminary/postliminary cases, and have lamented that the de minimis doctrine, often...more
Since the pandemic, companies across the nation have been dealing with the issue of remote work, from many perspectives, but amongst the most important, the wage-hour perspective of how to pay people properly. The USDOL...more
I have handled many lunchtime cases, where an employee (or a class) claim that they were not accorded a full thirty-minute lunch and therefore that half-hour (and many others perhaps) is compensable time. There are many...more
Working time cases, especially those claiming pay for preliminary or postliminary work are difficult and dangerous because they sneak up on an employer. These activities may seem minimal, or not connected to the main job as...more
How many times have I written about working time cases, so called “off the clock” cases, where the claimed compensable time arises from preliminary or postliminary activities that are tied to (or not) the main job of the...more
To me, working time lawsuits are almost the most dangerous for an employer because they often will affect many employees, lending themselves (easily) to a purported class action. A recent case from Illinois again brings to...more
Many employers believe that if an employee (or many employees) perform a tiny amount of work, or work-like activity, before their shifts, that brief off-the-clock, activity cannot be “working time” under the FLSA. This is the...more
I have written about call center cases, which involve allegedly unpaid working time, many times. Well, they continue to pop up. In a recent case, a class of workers claim that they were expected/required to handle customer...more
I have often said that the USDOL is a politically charged industry and its view on legal issues (much like the National Labor Relations Board) shifts with the Administration that is in power. For example, under the prior...more