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Wages & Hours

Court: Pay worker for post-shift security check

05/25/2010
Best Buy recently agreed to a $902,000 class-action settlement that resolves claims that the company didn’t pay workers in New York stores for minutes spent going through security check lines at the end of their shifts.

What documentation do we need to hire minors as seasonal employees?

05/24/2010
Q. We would like to hire several high school students to work in our retail store for the summer. Do we need to take any extra steps in our hiring process if we want to employ minors?

Duplicate systems led to OT shortages, university worker says

05/24/2010

An enrollment counselor is suing the online University of Phoenix for unpaid overtime, and wants to expand her lawsuit to include everyone else who worked as enrollment counselors in California over the past three years. Diane Adoma claims the university deliberately underpaid for overtime hours.

Health Net heads to court to fight wage-and-hour lawsuit

05/24/2010
A former customer service rep at Health Net Inc., a nationwide health maintenance organization based in Woodland Hills, is suing the company for requiring off-the-clock work … and she’s trying to turn the Fair Labor Standards Act suit into a class action that could involve hundreds of workers.

Walmart must defend against largest wage-and-hour class action in U.S. history

05/24/2010

Recently, the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history was given the go-ahead. Employers nationwide are waiting with bated breath to find out what happens to Walmart. While the exact number of employees who may find themselves part of the lawsuit is still unclear, it could reach well over 1 million women employed or formerly employed at 3,400 Walmart stores across the country.

To pay or not to pay interns? The DOL is cracking down

05/17/2010
Two factors have fueled a sharp rise in unpaid internships: Employers’ continuing need to hold down costs and the drop in the number of paying jobs for young people. But before you get too excited about using that free labor source, take note: The DOL and many state labor departments say they are stepping up enforcement and fines against employers that illegally don’t pay their interns.

Do we have to compensate employees who answer pagers off-the-clock?

05/14/2010
Q. We require certain employees to be on-call for customer service needs that arise after hours. Employees carry a pager while on-call, and are expected to respond to pages right away. Do we have to pay our employees regular wages, or a minimum number of hours and overtime for being on call?

Can we refuse to hire member of National Guard because she lacks weekend scheduling flexibility?

05/14/2010
Q. Can we refuse to hire a qualified applicant who has told us her National Guard duty conflicts with some of the weekends she would be required to work? Employees in this job bid for rotating scheduled weekends under a union contract seniority system. The applicant’s schedule for Guard duty is not flexible.

Massive Walmart class action moves forward

05/14/2010

It’s the employment law case everyone is watching. A massive, long-running gender pay discrimination class action against Walmart has overcome another hurdle on its way to what could become the largest payout to employees in U.S. history. The plaintiffs—potentially 1.5 million women who have worked at 3,400 Walmart stores—got a victory in April when the full panel 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for the case to proceed.

 

OK to use deductions to collect from employees?

05/11/2010
Q. If an employee owes us money, can we collect it through deductions from his wages?