A recent U.S. Department of Labor regulatory status report indicates that no proposal to change the 2016 compensation revisions affecting the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's so-called "white collar" exemptions will be...more
Once upon a time, a seriously-alarmed legislature grew concerned that wage-hour claims and litigation had gotten out-of-hand.
A series of court decisions had, among other things, broadly expanded the scope of what counted...more
A BloombergBNA report suggests that the U.S. Department of Labor is seriously considering retaining the Obama Administration's procedure (or something like it) for automatic "updates" to the compensation thresholds specified...more
11/20/2017
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
Compensation ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Inflation Adjustments ,
Minimum Salary ,
Notice and Comment ,
Obama Administration ,
Request For Information ,
Secretary of Labor ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Management's already-daunting, time-consuming responsibilities are further complicated by the need to motivate employees to do desirable things and to deter them from doing unwanted things. It is therefore understandable that...more
10/13/2017
/ Best Management Practices ,
Employee Incentive Plans ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Pay Reductions ,
Training ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
Pending proposals would radically transform the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the related federal Portal-to-Portal Act. Entitled the "Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act" in both the House (H.R. 3467) and the...more
10/5/2017
/ Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Criminal Penalties ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Records ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Payments ,
Labor Standards Enforcement ,
Liquidated Damages ,
Minimum Wage ,
Pending Legislation ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Theft
How does one calculate overtime pay due to plaintiffs who were erroneously treated as "white collar" employees exempt from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum-wage and overtime requirements? Court decisions...more
8/16/2017
/ Back Wages ,
Calculation of Damages ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Salary ,
Minimum Wage ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
We recently wrote about two federal appellate decisions holding that tipped employees for whom no federal Fair Labor Standards Act Section 3(m) "tip credit" has been taken, and to whom all FLSA minimum wages and overtime...more
The U.S. Department of Labor's announcement that it would resume issuing opinion letters has re-invigorated criticism that recently surfaced at the mere suggestion that this might be done.
...more
The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that it has withdrawn: -
Administrator Interpretation No. 2016-1, entitled "Joint Employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker...more
Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 1242) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 15) that would increase the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage from today's $7.25 an hour to $9.25 an...more
ABC Corporation sometimes conducts in-house, during-the-workday, performance-improvement training for its employees. Its Policy Manual includes a sentence saying, "The Company pays for the time employees spend in work-related...more
Summer's approach has sparked renewed interest in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's provision authorizing a less-than-$7.25 wage rate for certain younger employees in particular circumstances.
While there is such...more
If you plan to employ anyone under 18 years old for the summer, you should be thoroughly familiar with the child-labor limitations prescribed under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act....more
4/28/2017
/ Agricultural Workers ,
Child Labor ,
Civil Sanctions ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Minors ,
Penalties ,
Seasonal Workers ,
Wage and Hour
The U.S. House of Representatives is now actively considering the "Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017" (H.R. 1180), which would amend the federal Fair Labor Standards Act to permit private-sector employers to offer...more
Employers sometimes discover that, due to mistake, inadvertence, misunderstanding, or a lack of knowledge, they have not paid all of the wages required under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. In many instances, this does...more
U.S. Labor Secretary candidate Alexander Acosta's March 22 appearance before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee produced some interesting interchanges having to do with matters relating to the federal...more
When U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators conclude that back-wages are due under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act or another law the Division enforces, typically they present to the employer a...more
We wrote last December about our ongoing efforts to secure a copy of an undisclosed "policy" that various U.S. Department of Labor officials have referred to in insisting that an employer pay at least some amount in...more
The U.S. Department of Labor reports that a California restaurant company has agreed to take steps to remedy alleged:
? Non-compliance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's requirement that covered employers give...more
Readers will recall that, in 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor undertook to discourage the use of fluctuating-workweek pay plans under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
This compensation method calls for paying a...more
For the second time in less than a year, the U.S. Department of Labor will soon publish increases in the civil money penalties it can impose for certain violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and/or related...more
We have written previously about how important the "workweek" concept is in complying with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum-wage and overtime requirements.
An FLSA workweek is a fixed, regularly-recurring...more
Presidential elections have typically sparked speculation about possible changes in employment laws and enforcement policies. But this seems to be especially true now, due in part to the discussion already occurring about...more
Employers are returning from their Thanksgiving holiday weekend grappling with thorny questions following last week’s surprising and momentous court decision preliminarily blocking the Department of Labor’s overtime rule from...more
In a dramatic last-minute development, a federal judge in Texas today blocked the U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL’s) overtime rule from taking effect on December 1, handing an eleventh-hour victory to employers across the...more
11/23/2016
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Trump Administration ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions