California Employment News: Expanded Workplace Protections Regarding Cannabis Use
#WorkforceWednesday: Employees’ Off-Duty Conduct, Violence at Work Rises, the Election and the Gig Economy - Employment Law This Week®
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
With 2024 underway, we highlight some of the most pressing legal issues facing employers this year, including increased regulation of noncompetition agreements, new paid family and medical leave laws, a new Overtime Rule, and...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
In this issue of the Class Action Trends Report, Jackson Lewis attorneys look back at class action developments in 2021, including COVID-19 vaccine mandate litigation, significant procedural decisions, wage and hour suits,...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
In a chicken-and-egg type of case, an unusual case, the Third Circuit has emphatically held a Judge taking over a class action case must deal with the threshold issue of whether a class should be certified prior to a trial...more
Manufacturers face increasing difficulty in finding employees with the skills they need, where they need them to be. The skills gap has become a bigger issue as more manufacturers are looking to build where they sell, and...more
Miss Manners should stick to writing about ice cream forks. Those of you who read this blog know that I am a longtime fan of the etiquette columnist Judith Martin, aka "Miss Manners," in the Washington Post. I have even...more
Employers take note: recently New York became the 15th state to legalize recreational marijuana use through Senate Bill 854A, and Virginia is not far behind. ...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued additional guidance to employers as to the compensability of time employees spend attending voluntary training programs under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In other words, if...more
1. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) modified its standard for determining whether an employer may lawfully discipline an employee for abusive or offensive statements and conduct in the context of activity otherwise...more
Interstate truck drivers are generally exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, this statutory exemption does not apply to minimum wage obligations, and employers are therefore required...more
Even as FLSA litigation has surged to historic highs, it is rare to see a nefarious violation of the Act by a manager or supervisor. Far more prevalent, it seems, are stories of managers who, while intending to afford...more
Addressing an employment issue of interest in an increasingly digital world, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (which has jurisdiction over lower federal courts in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) recently upheld a...more
Police officers in the Chicago Police Department claimed in a recent case that they were not compensated for work they performed on their mobile electronic devices — specifically, their BlackBerrys — while off-duty. A total...more
Court Shoots Down Officers’ FLSA Claim for Off-Duty Work - Why it matters - Chicago police officers seeking compensation for work performed using their mobile devices while the officers were off duty could not recover...more
After living with the reality of after-hours work emails, texts and cell phone calls for so many years, no one should be surprised that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.) requires employers to pay...more
Employers often grapple with what to do when their policies prohibit off-duty work, like working on mobile devices after hours, that employees don’t follow. Even if it has a policy prohibiting off-duty work, if the employer...more
The City of Chicago lacked either actual or constructive knowledge that members of the Chicago Police Department were performing after-hours work on their smartphones, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, affirming...more
BlackBerry devices may be a thing of the past; but smartphones–and their ability to allow employees to be constantly connected–certainly aren’t going away any time soon. On Thursday, a judge in the Northern District of...more
Federal white collar exemptions: According to the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) most recent Semiannual Regulatory Agenda, proposed rules revising the regulations implementing the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) are...more
The Obama Administration used the occasion of Memorial Day weekend to release its required Semiannual Regulatory Agenda. The Agenda, which is not binding on the DOL, lists a number of items including two specifically related...more