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Compensation & Benefits

Without clause, employers can’t escape paying full wages

09/01/2007

When it comes to employment contracts, it’s wise to include an escape clause. Here’s why: If you don’t specify that you can terminate the contract early and then find yourself having to eliminate the employee, you may have to pay that employee the full amount he or she would have earned working the entire term of the contract …

East Point car dealer shoots, kills two who requested raises

09/01/2007

A suburban Atlanta car dealer has confessed to fatally shooting his two sole employees because they asked for raises. Rolandas Milinavicius opened RM Auto International in East Point two years ago to export American cars to his native Lithuania. Fed up with his employees’ frequent demands for more money, Milinavicius said he snapped on the morning of July 31 when they approached him for a raise …

Judge reverses decision after Labor Dept. issues opinion letter

09/01/2007

A federal judge has overturned his earlier decision in a Fair Labor Standards Act case involving several women who had been hired to sell houses in a new subdivision. The women claimed Brayson Homes owed them overtime and minimum wages …

Ball Aerospace picks up $593,092 lunch tab for nonexempt employees

09/01/2007

Ball Aerospace and Technologies will pay $976,327 to 904 employees in Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Georgia and the District of Columbia for unpaid wages. Ball, a Broomfield, CO-based aerospace defense contractor, operates a facility in the city of Warner Robins supporting Robins Air Force Base …

Georgia ‘Donning and doffing’ case headed to high court?

09/01/2007

You may remember that the U.S. Supreme Court decided a donning and doffing case about a year ago. That might have been the end of the matter. But nothing is simple when it comes to employment law. Recently, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that workers cannot demand pay for time spent donning and doffing their uniforms in most circumstances …

Travel time normally not payable

09/01/2007

Q. Do I have to pay my employees for travel time? …

It’s up to employers to prove they’re acting in good faith

09/01/2007

You’ve no doubt heard the adage that ignorance of the law is no excuse. But what you may not know is that it’s up to employers to prove they took concrete steps to overcome that ignorance if the law in question is the Fair Labor Standards Act …

Thought hiring a lawyer would cost too much, huh?

09/01/2007

A whistle-blowing nurse represented himself in his Conscientious Employee Protection Act case against his former employer. He won $3,500, but received no lost wages …

Court tells brokers that state overtime claim is overkill

09/01/2007

A group of financial advisors with WM Financial Services has sued the company under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and several state laws. Their complaints are many, but largely revolve around overtime pay they say the company owes them and disputes over how their commissions were calculated …

One mistake won’t sink fluctuating workweek election

09/01/2007

Employers that use the Fair Labor Standards Act’s fluctuating workweek method to calculate pay should take heart!  Making one innocent deduction mistake doesn’t mean you can never use the method again …