California Employment News: The Regular Rate of Pay and Risks of Getting it Wrong
#WorkforceWednesday: Joint Employment, Coronavirus, Medical Marijuana Protections - Employment Law This Week®
III-44- A Little Help From The DOL
On November 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Opinion Letter FLSA2024-01. This letter provides additional clarity about whether daily expense reimbursement payments can be excluded from an employee’s regular...more
The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Colorado law is not like federal law when it comes to holiday pay. The Court found that the Colorado Minimum Wage Order (currently, COMPS Order 39) requires holiday incentive pay be...more
Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated decision, finding that the “regular rate of pay” under Colorado law does include holiday incentive pay for purposes of calculating overtime. The Tenth Circuit,...more
Recently, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced proposed legislation that would reduce the standard workweek in the United States from 40 to 32 hours. The Bill, titled the “Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act” (the Act), would...more
I am always interested in cases that analyze what payments should and should not be included in the regular rate. These issues are important to employers because their overtime liability/exposure can be dramatically inflated...more
In the wake of the pandemic, some employers — opting for the carrot over the stick — have started offering weekly attendance bonuses to incentivize a return to the office. We have recently seen an uptick in employee-filed...more
I. SYNOPSIS- Ed was a vibrant and healthy 85-year-old. One day, he decided to sign an advance healthcare directive providing that if his physical condition ever declined, he wished to remain in his home as long as...more
One of the most common mistakes made by employers is the failure to properly calculate the regular rate when paying overtime compensation to employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA is a cornerstone of...more
I read an interesting post by Frank Shuster of Constangy, Brooks, Smith on the thorny and often misunderstood issue of the “regular rate” and what that concept entails for compliance with the FLSA. Many employers,...more
In the past week, a class action lawsuit was filed against Anheuser-Busch, alleging various violations of California’s wage and hour laws. You may ask, “What’s newsworthy about that? Aren’t hundreds of such lawsuits filed...more
Reviving a security guard’s claim for overtime pay, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently reiterated that employers may not pay employees an artificially low regular rate of pay to avoid paying the proper amount of...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it has taken its first-ever Clean Water Act (CWA) enforcement action against water pollution by so-called “forever chemicals” from a West Virginia chemical plant. On April...more
I always tell clients it is not enough to “merely” comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act on wage-hour issues. I always tell them that they must comply with State law, which may (often) be stricter than the federal law and...more
When the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division published a Final Rule on the regular rate in late 2019, it gave employers the freedom to more easily offer perks and benefits to their employees without running afoul...more
It is black letter FLSA canon that a promised bonus, such as a production bonus, or longevity bonus, must be included in the regular rate of employees who work overtime for the period of time covered by the bonus. This maxim...more
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether a supervisor who was paid a daily, rather than a weekly, rate and earned more than $200,000 a year is exempt from the overtime provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act provides an employee should receive compensation for overtime hours at a rate “not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). This is a...more
Pennsylvania employers with salaried, nonexempt employees working in the commonwealth may need to adjust how they calculate overtime premiums for these employees in light of amendments to the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that non-exempt employees be paid no less than time and one-half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek. How should an employer calculate an...more
Second of two on the FLSA. NOTE FROM ROBIN: In March, I began a series of very basic explanations of the federal laws that govern the workplace. The first installment covered discrimination in general, the second...more
For years now, healthcare employers have been particularly attractive targets when it comes to wage and hour compliance actions. Not only is the industry one of the largest in the country, there are some issues unique to...more
The issue of whether expense reimbursements should be included as “wages” when computing the regular rate for overtime has been around for many years. Sometimes, an employer will seek to “disguise” wages as expenses in order...more
Although the employer’s pay system for its auto repair technicians was complicated and at times redundant, it nevertheless constituted a bona fide commissions compensation method subject to exemption from the overtime pay...more
The California Supreme Court ruled on July 15 that California employers must calculate nonexempt employees’ meal, rest, and recovery period premium payments based on both hourly wages and any other nondiscretionary wage...more
The Virginia Overtime Wage Act imposes a state law obligation to pay overtime and expands upon the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in several important areas. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam recently signed into law the...more