Your assistant sends you an email late in the evening (way after the 5:00 hour) and reminds you that you have an appointment in the morning. You respond: “Thanks for the reminder. Could you please make sure that I have...more
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
One of the biggest threats facing employers is employees performing pre-shift/post-shift work without being paid and then suing, as a class, for that compensation. This trend is especially prevalent in the customer...more
In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, No. S275431 (March 25, 2024), the California Supreme Court issued an important decision relating to whether California employers must pay non-exempt employees for certain pre-shift...more
Under the FLSA, for training time to not be counted as working hours, there are specific conditions that must be met. If all four of these conditions are not met, then the time is compensable. These factors are: 1) no work...more
Over the last ten years or so, there have been a rash of class actions involving workers employed at various call centers. These cases involve the performance of work prior to the shift and after, so-called preliminary and...more
Now that the clocks have changed for the ending of Daylight Savings Time (DST) there may be overtime implications for employers, especially for those employees who work graveyard or overnight shifts. As clocks are set an...more
Employers who rely on their workers to identify and report overtime as a prerequisite for payment may be setting themselves up for significant liability. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently reminded...more
It seems every other week there is a call center case involving preliminary and postliminary working time. Now, it is a Wayfair call center. The customer service workers allege that the booting up of their computers and...more
Last week the UK government announced that it was planning to make changes to the Working Time Regulations and one aspect of TUPE. It has now published a consultation paper providing further detail about the proposed reforms....more
The government has announced that it will not repeal most retained EU law at the end of the year as originally planned. However, it is planning to use Brexit-related freedoms to amend some aspects of the Working Time...more
The German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs had announced a draft bill for the first quarter to implement the requirements of the European Court of Justice and the German Federal Labor Court on the recording of...more
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers transitioned millions of employees to remote work. In many industries, the transition back to the office has been slow or nonexistent, drastically reducing the number of...more
Working time cases, especially those claiming pay for preliminary or postliminary work are difficult and dangerous because they sneak up on an employer. These activities may seem minimal, or not connected to the main job as...more
“I am angry and I don’t know what to do with my anger!” This is a line from the movie, The Big Chill, one of my favorites. It also describes how I feel when I see yet another class action lawsuit in a health care facility...more
The issue of working time, especially the issue of preliminary and postliminary activities and what activities are compensable, haunts me as a practitioner and is confusing for employers....more
In separate developments, the UK government announced two potentially significant changes for employers. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill could mean that at least some EU-derived employment law will expire on...more
I have blogged many times on security check cases and whether that waiting time is compensable. It continues to be a thorny issue and pops up in many jurisdictions. In an interesting variation on this theme, the California...more
Mit seinem Beschluss vom 13. September 2022 hat das Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG) anlässlich eines Streits um Rechte des Betriebsrats bei der Arbeitszeiterfassung beiläufig mitgeteilt, dass Arbeitgeber verpflichtet sind, die...more
I have handled many working time cases, such as travel time and waiting time cases. A recent case coming out of Maryland spells trouble for employers on these issues. A court has ruled that waiting time, at the jobsite, and...more
Bereits 2019 forderte der EuGH (v. 14. Mai 2019, C-55/18) die Mitgliedstaaten dazu auf, die Arbeitgeber*innen zu verpflichten, die täglich geleistete Arbeitszeit der Mitarbeitenden zu erfassen. Das deutsche Arbeitszeitgesetz...more
How many times have I written about working time cases, so called “off the clock” cases, where the claimed compensable time arises from preliminary or postliminary activities that are tied to (or not) the main job of the...more
To me, working time lawsuits are almost the most dangerous for an employer because they often will affect many employees, lending themselves (easily) to a purported class action. A recent case from Illinois again brings to...more
In Smith v Pimlico Plumbers Ltd the Court of Appeal for England and Wales allowed a worker to carry forward statutory holiday he had accrued during the course of his employment, which he had taken but not been paid for, until...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