Fifteen-year-old Conor is suspended from high school in December for a period of 60 days due to his disruptive misbehavior. His father Rick is the Shop Foreman at the PoundOut Auto Body Center, Inc.
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Yet another "misclassification" bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would impose new prohibitions, requirements, and penalties relating to categorizing a worker as being either an employee or a non-employee. The "Payroll Fraud...more
One of the U.S. Labor Department's continuing federal Fair Labor Standards Act enforcement initiatives targets hotels and motels. Officials are following-through on their 2010 warning that they see the hospitality industry as...more
The U.S. Labor Department has announced another proposal to conduct a survey relating to "worker classification issues" under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
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A decision by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (with jurisdiction over Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) illustrates and exacerbates the utter and unwarranted morass into which the calculation of overtime pay has...more
A U.S. Labor Department press release serves as a reminder that violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act can result in more than just back-wage payments and other civil remedies.
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We have observed for some time now that the spate of wage-hour lawsuits might be expected drastically to curtail the availability of internships of both the unpaid and paid varieties.
Employment Law 360 reports that...more
We reported in July that the U.S. Labor Department had launched a "Fair Labor Data Challenge" asking application developers to create "an innovative tool that lets an informed consumer find out if a business is obeying the...more
Employers sometimes pay workers more than the federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires. Of course, some do so as a matter of choice.
However, in other situations, this happens because management misunderstands what...more
A recent $4 million settlement between the U.S. Labor Department and a Texas healthcare employer highlights a recurring overtime issue under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
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A statement of some federal-law limitations and requirements relating to the increasingly popular practice of compensating employees via the use of "pay cards" came from an atypical direction on September 12....more
The unpaid-interns ruckus continues to unfold, this time in a way that entangles President Obama.
As we observed in March 2012, an unpaid White House intern might conclude that he or she is "engaged in the operations...more
Last month's "Fuzzy Thinking" post mentioned Sisson v. RadioShack Corp., in which a lower federal court in Ohio deferred to the U.S. Labor Department's 2011 allegation that paying performance bonuses is purportedly...more
A little-known section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires employers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to allow a worker to take unpaid break time to express breastmilk for her...more
Two federal appellate courts have ruled this year that, as one of them put it, "aliens, authorized to work or not, may recover unpaid and underpaid wages under the [federal Fair Labor Standards Act]."...more
The U.S. Labor Department has signaled for some time now that it considers shame and ostracism to be enforcement tools....more
In 2011, the U.S. Labor Department did its best to discourage the use of fluctuating-workweek pay plans under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. It undertook this in a grab-bag release collectively titled "Final Rule",...more
Our recent "Famous Last Words" post cautioned that having an employee enter into an agreement that is contrary to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's requirements does not trump those requirements....more
Our Quick Quiz Answer discussing day-rate plans led one reader to observe that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act does not always bar employers from paying non-exempt employees a fixed sum that "builds in" some FLSA...more
We have repeatedly cautioned that employers who are prepared to take on unpaid interns should enter into these arrangements with their eyes fully open. New developments emphasize this yet again....more
We’ve warned clients for some time now that businesses and other organizations should think carefully if they are considering the possibility of permitting unpaid internships. What might be described as the internship...more
There has always been a great deal of mistaken conventional wisdom afoot where the federal Fair Labor Standards Act is concerned. We have blogged previously about the common misconception that one pay practice or another has...more
The Big Corporation decides that it will start paying its Field Service Technicians on a day-rate basis, instead of on an hourly basis. Under the day-rate plan, a Technician will now receive a fixed amount of money for each...more
Pressure continues to mount for raising the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage in three stages from the current $7.25 per hour to (so far) $10.10 per hour. Under pending proposals, the rate would thereafter be...more
Readers will recall that, in April 2011, the U.S. Labor Department declined to adopt an interpretation proposed in 2008 that would have acknowledged the federal Fair Labor Standards Act overtime-exempt status of employees...more