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Wages & Hours

Ignore job titles; manager doesn’t spell ‘exempt’

04/01/2003
Don’t expect a job title to help you, or a court, determine an employee’s exempt or nonexempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). A manager in name only doesn’t …

Shifting exempt staff to nonexempt duties is OK for occasional tasks

04/01/2003
Don’t fear asking your managers to sweep the floor once in a while. As this case shows, occasionally assigning menial tasks won’t automatically erase …

No pay for employee commute–even on ferry.

04/01/2003
To travel to and from their job at an island-based prison, a group of Washington state social workers had to take a daily 20-minute ferry ride. They weren’t paid for …

Hiring summer interns? Keep it legal, dude

04/01/2003
Expect a bumper crop of eager interns this summer, thanks in part to the still-struggling economy. While internships can be a win/win situation for employers and students, …

Set Policy, Check State Law for ‘Snow Day’ Pay

04/01/2003

Q. An ice storm recently knocked out power in 87 percent of the city. Our company had no power from Sunday until Wednesday. Some hourly employees showed up to work Monday because they live in surrounding counties and didn’t know about the outage. Are we obligated to pay those who showed up but were unable to work? —D.K., Kentucky

Audit your classifications before requiring overtime

04/01/2003

Q. What are the legal ramifications of requiring all employees to work a minimum of 45 hours a week (nine hours a day)? Everyone in the office is an exempt employee. —S.M., New Jersey

Don’t Require Direct Deposit

04/01/2003

Q. Can a business require employees to use direct deposit of paychecks? —N.C., Kansas

Fast fix to FLSA error can save you, but ‘correction window’ closes fast

03/01/2003
If you screw up on a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) pay issue, don’t count on the “window of corrections” to save you. Sure, this Labor Department rule allows you to …

Offset bonus pay against weekly overtime with care

02/01/2003
Fabri-Centers gave workers several bonus payments above their base pay, including shift differentials, holiday pay and spot bonuses. But the company calculated employees’…

FLSA, FMLA enforcement reaches record highs

02/01/2003
If you thought the regulatory watchdogs would become lap dogs under the Bush administration, you were wrong. In fiscal 2002, the U.S. Labor Department collected $143 …