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Wages & Hours

California Supreme Court: Employees get hearing before arbitration

04/20/2011
The California Supreme Court has ruled that arbitration agreements are not enforceable if they require employees to arbitrate wage claims before they have a nonbinding administrative hearing before the State Labor Commissioner.

For 24-hour employees, unpaid uninterrupted sleep is OK

04/20/2011
Employers and employees can agree that up to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep time does not have to be paid.

Employees miss breaks? You owe for each one

04/20/2011

A recent Court of Appeal of California case clarifies that employers that fail to provide appropriate rest and meal breaks must pay a penalty—referred to as a premium payment—for each missed break each day. An employer had argued it only had to pay one penalty per day.

Meal breaks: You must make them available; you don’t have to force employees to eat

04/20/2011

The Court of Appeal of California has ruled that employers are only required to make meal and other breaks available to employees. They don’t have to force employees to take those breaks or eat a meal. Your only obligation: Make sure that no work is required to be performed during scheduled break time.

Federal government employer? You are liable for interest on back pay if you discriminate

04/20/2011
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Back Pay Act allows judges to order interest payments to federal government employees who win discrimination lawsuits if the employees were affected by “an unjustified or unwarranted personnel action which resulted in the withdrawal or reduction of all or part” of the employee’s pay.

Review exempt/nonexempt status in wake of court decision on administrative exception

04/20/2011
Good news for employers: The Court of Appeal of California has found that claims adjusters are exempt administrative employees not entitled to overtime. The court rejected the notion that all claims adjusters who work for insurance companies are nonexempt employees without regard to the work they actually perform.

Employing Minors: Federal Law & Legal Best Practices

04/19/2011
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Class action could pair employees, contractors

04/14/2011
Do you try to cut labor costs by hiring independent contractors to do employees’ jobs? If so, consider this risk: Both employees and independent contractors who do the same or similar work could join together and sue over unpaid wages and overtime.

Exempt employee does some hourly work? Here’s how to preserve exempt classification

04/14/2011
Here’s some help for HR professionals trying to do all they can to safeguard their organization’s exempt/nonexempt employee classifications—especially in an economic climate that requires companies to do more with less:

The best reason to retain personnel documents: Employees–and courts–have long memories

04/14/2011
Employees are often only too happy to go back years to come up with circumstantial evidence that their employers are biased, citing incidents that on their own could not be the basis for a lawsuit.