Over the past few years, the National Labor Relations Board has taken aggressive measures to extend labor law protections to some non-unionized employees. These decisions have involved employer policies restricting social...more
In recent years, more workers have filed claims for unpaid overtime based on occupations that are potentially subject to specialized exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Some of this litigation involves the...more
Last week, a federal judge in Michigan ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest and imprison a home healthcare agency owner who repeatedly defied a U.S. Department of Labor demand that she provide pay records as part of a...more
12/8/2023
/ Contempt ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Government Investigations ,
Home Health Agencies ,
Payroll Records ,
Prison ,
Subpoenas
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), business owners and managers may not share in their servers’ tips. In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced recoveries against two restaurants...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act’s executive exemption applies to managers whose primary job function involves the supervision of two or more full time equivalents. In recent years, a large number of retailers, hospitality...more
When we review an employer’s overtime exemption classifications for various jobs, we frequently raise questions over whether employees qualify as exempt administrative workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Many...more
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a proposal to increase the salary requirement for employers to claim certain exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and minimum wage requirements to...more
9/8/2023
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Proposed Rules ,
Salaried Employees ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
For decades, the Department of Labor (DOL) has recognized the impracticability of requiring Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nonexempt employees to clock in exactly at the beginning of their scheduled shifts. In most...more
8/18/2023
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Class Action ,
De Minimis Claims ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Rounding ,
Timekeeping ,
Underpayment ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Employers that fail to pay required minimum wage or overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act are liable for the amount of missed wages: doubled, plus attorneys fees, costs, and interest. The court can award such damages...more
In recent years, persons or groups unhappy about a new federal law or regulation have chosen to file suit in a selected federal district court, often in Texas, seeking a nationwide injunction to prohibit the new measure from...more
7/21/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued new regulations dealing with the Fair Labor Standards Act’s tip credit. The tip credit allows employers to pay a $2.13 hourly minimum wage to tipped...more
5/5/2023
/ Appeals ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Reversal ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Some restaurants in Atlanta, Charlotte, and other cities have begun adding a service charge to diners’ bills. The trend has grown enough in the District of Columbia, for example, that its attorney general recently warned...more
On Wednesday, in a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision finding that a highly compensated employee who was paid a day rate did not qualify as exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair...more
When determining whether an employee qualifies for a minimum wage and overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers often quickly rule out most of the available exemptions. For example, the executive...more
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that may determine whether employers can claim the overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for highly compensated workers who are not paid...more
11/18/2022
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc v Hewitt No 21-984 ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Oral Argument ,
Over-Time ,
SCOTUS ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On Tuesday, the federal Department of Labor (DOL) released proposed rules intended to clarify when workers are employees as opposed to independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA governs...more
Over the years, we have periodically published EmployNews articles on the impact of bonuses or other incentive compensation on the regular rate used to calculate overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)....more
The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides broad preemption of state laws that seek to limit the ability of employers to compel mandatory arbitration of disputes with employees. However, the FAA contains carve-outs that...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides a number of exemptions from its overtime and minimum wage requirements for employees paid on a salaried basis. FLSA rules also allow certain highly compensated employees (currently...more
One of the hottest areas of controversy in recent years in wage and hour law has involved employees’ right to tips, and employer’s ability to use such tips to count toward minimum wage and overtime payments. As a result of...more
Late in the Trump administration, the Department of Labor issued final rules intended to distinguish between employees and independent contractors for purposes of qualification for overtime and minimum wage obligations under...more
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued final regulations implementing 2018 amendments to provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act that deal with compensation of tipped employees. For certain...more
Employers facing worker shortages are having to use creative means to get their necessary work done. These shortages are especially apparent in the hospitality industry, where restaurants and other employers are scrambling to...more
The seemingly never-ending battle over interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s tip credit provision took another turn Monday. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued proposed rules that would set...more
6/25/2021
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Proposed Rules ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
On Wednesday, the federal Department of Labor announced its decision to withdraw regulations issued during the final weeks of the Trump administration that defined the difference between employees and independent contractors...more