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Wages & Hours

Fevered worker sent home: Is that a paid day?

07/21/2020
One of the CDC’s main workplace suggestions during the pandemic is that employers should take employees’ temperatures each day and send home anyone who has a fever (100.4 degrees and above). But if you send workers home right after they arrive, must you pay them for that day? Depending on where a business is located, you may.

Back to work with higher pay! Or maybe less

07/02/2020
Employers that need to closely manage their labor budgets face challenging times. Many have had to raise wages to ensure adequate staffing. But more money isn’t a universal solution.

Steer clear of basing pay on previous compensation

06/18/2020
Attorneys who represent employees and job applicants are starting to win equal-pay cases they might have lost in years past. They are claiming that basing a new employee’s starting pay on how much he or she earned before so perpetuates past bias that it is itself a discriminatory act.

Beware misclassifying covid-19 teleworkers

06/18/2020
The mass, covid-inspired migration from office work to telework has been surprisingly seamless for many employees and employers. But in some cases, the move has triggered wage-and-hour compliance problems that few would have anticipated.

Fiscal woes? Consider cutting pay, not jobs

06/09/2020
Increasingly, employers are skipping layoffs, which bring Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act compliance headaches and increase the risk of costly class-action lawsuits. Instead, they’re opting to cut pay and retain workers. It’s a strategy with both pros and cons.

DOL: No pause in wage-and-hour lawsuits

04/23/2020
Don’t expect a decline in lawsuits during the coronavirus pandemic. Be sure you continue to follow all your usual protocols for responding to EEOC complaints, subpoenas and other legal notices.

Snapshot: How are nonexempts recording their hours?

04/07/2020
Employees may be working remotely, but it’s still critical to accurately track nonexempt hours worked. Here’s how employers are handling that task.

Coronavirus: Good news for hourly workers’ pay

03/24/2020
A new survey by Willis Towers Watson finds that most employers will continue to pay hourly workers who test positive for the virus (72%), whose workplace experiences a mandated closure (54%) or who have a cold or flu-like symptoms and voluntarily stay home (51%).

18% of Americans losing jobs or income due to coronavirus

03/19/2020
A new poll finds that 18% of American workers have either lost their jobs or had their hours and thus their pay reduced because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Get ready for more failure-to-promote suits

03/19/2020
The coming months look like they will bring hard economic times, which probably means we will see an increase in employee lawsuits. One unique risk to watch out for: failure-to-promote litigation.