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Compensation & Benefits

Greengrocer to pay $675,000 to underpaid workers

12/01/2007

Rossman Fruit and Vegetable, a Brooklyn discount greengrocer, agreed to pay $675,000 in back wages to 222 employees to settle a U.S. Labor Department lawsuit. The settlement covers payments below minimum wage and unpaid time-and-a-half for overtime hours from 2001 to 2005 …

Commissions, overtime and the Fair Labor Standards Act

12/01/2007

Q. We have a number of employees who are paid on a commission basis. Are they exempt from overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act? …

Disciplining tardy, exempt employees

12/01/2007

Q. We have an exempt employee who is consistently late a few times a week, arriving anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours late. Can we discipline him for being consistently late? In addition, can we require him to work at set times—for example from 9 am to 5 pm? …

If pay varies widely, document rationale for disparity

12/01/2007

Sometimes you have to sweeten the pay pot to attract highly qualified employees. But before you pay wildly dissimilar salaries to people in the same or similar positions, make sure you justify the differences. There are two ways to do that …

Employers have burden to prove employee hours fell short of FMLA requirements

12/01/2007

If you don’t track hours worked (for example, if you have exempt employees who come and go as they please), you may find yourself in hot water if you claim an employee hasn’t worked enough hours to be eligible for FMLA leave. The FMLA regulations make it clear that if “an employer does not maintain accurate records of hours worked by an employee … the employer has the burden of showing that the employee has not worked the requisite hours” …

Forced arbitration agreement doesn’t stop class-Action wage-and-Hour lawsuits

12/01/2007

A California appeals court ruled that employees can still participate in class-action wage-and-hour lawsuits even if they signed arbitration agreements waiving their rights to those kinds of suits as a condition of continued employment. The court said such agreements are unconscionable and therefore not enforceable …

SoCal contractor pays $200,000 in back wages to employees

12/01/2007

The U.S. Labor Department announced that a Southern California company paid $200,013 in back wages for unpaid overtime to 231 current and former employees. Memo Scaffolding, which specializes in setting up scaffolding for residential and commercial construction projects, also paid $60,000 incivil penalties …

Reconciling rest periods and restrooms

12/01/2007

Q. We operate a labor-intensive factory that requires workers to remain at their stations throughout most of the workday. Is it legal to require workers to use their 10-minute rest period to use the restroom? …

Madison County settles in religious discrimination case

12/01/2007

An agnostic paramedic sued Madison County for religious discrimination after the county offered Christian counseling, held Christian prayer meetings in the workplace and allegedly terminated him because of his agnosticism …

MasTec to settle overtime suit

12/01/2007

Technology company MasTec has agreed to settle long-standing overtime suits involving some of its home installation employees. The complaints date back to 2001 and affect current and former employees in 10 states, including Georgia …