The Department of Labor issued a Final Rule on April 24, 2024, addressing the salary requirements for the overtime (“white collar”) exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Final Rule increases the standard salary...more
5/1/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On Tuesday, April 23, the United States Department of Labor issued its anticipated Final Rule on the Fair Labor Standards Act salary requirements for overtime exemption.
The Final Rule, which will likely face legal...more
It is every employer’s nightmare: You find out that employees (or former employees) are claiming that they were not paid properly and are due overtime for the last two or three years. This primarily arises because you...more
The DOL issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing, among other things, to increase the salary threshold for white-collar overtime exemptions. You may recall that there was a lot of discussion about this back in 2016...more
9/7/2023
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Over-Time ,
Proposed Rules ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Last Tuesday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published an anticipated Proposed Rule on joint employer status. The Proposed Rule, which is designed to apply for all purposes under the National Labor Relations Act...more
When a company faces a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective action there are two main components to address: (1)You Can’t Put the Trial Cart Before the Certification Horse in FLSA Hybrid Wage-and-Hour Case; Circuit...more
10/19/2021
/ Appeals ,
Appellate Courts ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Collective Actions ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
FRCP 23 ,
Wage and Hour
On January 7, we wrote about the DOL’s Final Rule on Independent Contractor Status that was slated to take effect on March 8, 2021. Many employer and business groups applauded the Final Rule because its focus on the economic...more
3/3/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Final Rules ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Freeze ,
Wage and Hour
Employers often ask, “Can this worker be an independent contractor?” The answer is often unclear due to the different tests for employee versus independent contractor status, which vary between federal circuit courts and from...more
Remember last January and the salary threshold change the Department of Labor rolled out for salaried exempt and highly compensated employees under the FLSA? As the end of the year approaches, you might need to revisit the...more
12/18/2020
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Obama Administration ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
Whether a worker is an employee covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (and potentially entitled to overtime pay or benefits) or an independent contractor who is not covered has been the center of an ongoing legal...more
10/5/2020
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
Proposed Rules ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Wage and Hour
The U.S. Department of Labor issued a Field Assistance Bulletin on June 24, 2020, announcing that it will not routinely assess pre-litigation liquidated damages as part of the settlement process for claims under the Fair...more
In an important wage-and-hour decision for franchisors, Salazar, et al. v. the McDonald’s Corp., et al., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that employees of one of the hamburger giant’s California-based franchisees...more
10/2/2019
/ Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Joint Employers ,
McDonalds ,
State Labor Laws ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
The era of #MeToo has caused employers to hyper-focus on harassment claims. They have fine-tuned their policies, investigated claims more carefully, and acted swiftly and sometimes even in a draconian fashion upon finding any...more
We routinely receive calls from employers who want to terminate an employee (or have been sued for doing so) but do not have a good paper trail to support their decision. Usually, we hear that the supervisor has talked to the...more
Unless you have been living in a cave for the last month, you have heard about the sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. The story has all of the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster, except...more
In a victory for restaurant employers, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Relish Catering can keep customer tips without violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), so long as the employee is paid at an...more
9/5/2017
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
More frequently, employers are turning to arbitration agreements to keep lawsuits out of court and prevent the threat of run-away juries. Many arbitration agreements also contain class action waivers which require employees...more
Hold the iPhone —a recent lawsuit by a group of Chicago police officers should have employers on high alert—at least those who permit, officially or not, non-exempt employees to do anything business-related on a mobile...more
When Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medial Leave Act (FMLA), it considered them as needed protections for clear-cut situations. For...more
Our first segments in our six-part series on pregnancy in the workplace focused on how the ADA, FMLA and PDA apply in the workplace to employees before, during, and after pregnancy and child birth. In this segment, we narrow...more