The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a new Final Rule updating the minimum salary requirements for the “white collar” (executive, administrative, and professional) overtime exemptions. The new rule goes into effect...more
Paying an employee a day rate of $1,000 per day satisfies the salary basis test for purposes of the overtime exemption applicable to a “highly compensated employee” (HCE) under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the U.S....more
After six months of primarily internal Democratic Party wrangling, on July 18, 2019 the House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act, which, if it became law, would progressively increase the federal minimum wage to...more
A bill aimed at increasing protections for employer “wage theft” by allowing an employer’s current or former employee, or the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), to place a lien on the employer’s interest in real or...more
The U.S. Supreme Court term that ended in June 2019 included decisions on many topics important to workplace law, including class actions, arbitration, and administrative exhaustion and Title VII claims.
...more
7/10/2019
/ Age Discrimination ,
Arbitration ,
Auer Deference ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Class Arbitration ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Kisor v Wilkie ,
Lamps Plus Inc v Varela ,
Mount Lemmon Fire District v Guido ,
Parker Drilling Management Services Ltd v Newton ,
SCOTUS ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
By the thinnest of margins, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to overrule the so-called Auer (or Seminole Rock) deference doctrine, under which courts defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own...more
7/1/2019
/ Administrative Agencies ,
Ambiguous ,
Appeals ,
Auer Deference ,
Kisor v Wilkie ,
Reasonable Interpretations ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Stare Decisis ,
Vacated ,
Veterans' Benefits
Workers on oil drilling platforms off the coast of California are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), not California’s overtime and wage laws, the U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously. Parker Drilling...more
6/17/2019
/ Appeals ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Enclave Rules ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Offshore Drilling ,
On-Call Employees ,
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act ,
Parker Drilling Management Services Ltd v Newton ,
Preemption ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Citing the interest expressed by “law firms, unions, and advocacy organizations, among others,” the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has extended the period for public comment on recently-issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking...more
Since 1939, regulations interpreting the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) have recognized that two or more “employers” can be jointly and severally liable for a single employee’s hours worked under the Act. However, the U.S....more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to revise the regulations governing the calculation of the regular rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The FLSA generally requires...more
Should courts defer to agency interpretations of their own regulations so long as the interpretations are reasonable, even if a court believes another reasonable reading of a regulation is the better reading? In Auer v....more
The New York Department of Labor’s (NYDOL) longstanding interpretation of its wage order as applied to the work hours of non-residential employees performing 24-hour (so-called “sleep-in” or “live-in”) shifts has been upheld...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new proposed rule that intends to raise the annual minimum salary requirements for the FLSA’s “white collar” (executive, administrative, and professional)...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a new proposed rule raising the annual minimum salary requirements for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “white collar” overtime exemptions (executive, administrative, and...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a new proposed rule raising the salary level requirements for the white collar exemptions. A full article discussing the proposed rule will be published later but here is what...more
The New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) is no longer pursuing regulations on “call-in pay,” or predictive scheduling, that would affect most New York employers....more
Last November, the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) issued Opinion Letter FLSA2018-27, rescinding the so-called “80/20” Tip Credit Rule, a provision that during the last decade had spawned a cottage industry of...more
Concluding that a student at a for-profit cosmetology academy was the “primary beneficiary” of the hours he spent training at the academy’s salon, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the district’s court’s...more
The law regulating the payment of wages and work hours is a vibrant area: the “fight for $15.00”; battles over who can receive tips (and whether the tip credit should be eliminated entirely); whether workers should be given...more
1/28/2019
/ ABC Test ,
Arbitration ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Independent Contractors ,
Internships ,
Minimum Wage ,
Over-Time ,
Primary Beneficiary Test ,
Salary/Wage History ,
State Labor Laws ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Payment and Collection Act ,
White-Collar Exemptions
The DOL’s new overtime rule, intended to replace the rule announced late in the Obama administration but subsequently declared invalid by a federal court, finally has made, or soon will make its way, to the Office of...more
Two years ago, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) issued final regulations implementing changes resulting from increases to the minimum wage. The state minimum wage for non-exempt employees and the salary level...more
The New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) has issued sweeping proposed regulations addressing worker scheduling practices that will affect most employers in the state (though employers covered by the Hospitality Wage...more
While the federal minimum wage has remained stalled at $7.25 an hour since 2009, there has been significant movement at the state level, with some states enacting a minimum wage rate that is now more than double the federal...more
New York’s Suffolk County is the latest local jurisdiction to adopt legislation prohibiting employers from asking about the prior salary histories of prospective employees. The salary history ban amends the Suffolk County...more
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL) has reissued a 2009 opinion letter, effectively withdrawing enforcement guidance that made the tip credit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) unavailable...more