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Wages & Hours

Should we be paying for the trip from our home office to the work site?

06/16/2014
Q. One of our work crews needs to drive to a single work site during the day. One employee drives a truck and trailer with tools and equipment from our main facility. We would like to allow other employees to save gas by riding in the company’s truck. Do we need to pay employees for this commute time?

Hibachi Buffet carves out settlement in wage suit

06/16/2014
A U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation has found that the Hibachi Buffet restaurant in Minneapolis owes 18 employees a total of $117,000 in unpaid wages.

Feds cut off future work for North Woods, Minn. contractor

06/16/2014
Garcia Forest Service finds itself barred from doing any more federal contract work after Uncle Sam found that it was cutting more than trees while performing forestry services in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota.

Pay tops job security as #1 reason for job satisfaction

06/13/2014
For the first time since the pre-recession year of 2007, U.S. employees say compensation is now their No. 1 contributor to their job satisfaction, according to an annual Society for Human Resource Management survey.

MTA rank and file sign contract

06/09/2014
A new contract grants unionized em­­ployees of New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority retroactive 1% raises for each of the past two years, which means most will receive one-time payments between $3,000 and $5,000.

San Antonio fast food franchisee hit with OT suit

05/28/2014
A San Antonio area franchisee faces charges he failed to pay proper overtime to his employees. Wessam “Sammie” Aldeeb operate eight restaurants, including Subway, Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery stores. A recently filed suit seeks class-action status for at least 125 current or former employees of Aldeeb’s franchises.

Church wages don’t count toward unemployment benefits

05/28/2014
Employees can’t count their work histories with religious organizations when seeking unemployment benefits.

Wage stagnation may be long-term business reality

05/26/2014
Wages will rise less than 3% over the next three years, according to 82% of U.S. employers polled by the nonprofit National Association for Business Economics.

Real wages declined significantly in past 7 years

05/26/2014
Real wages are down almost 8% since 2006, according to the compensation research firm PayScale, which analyzed Consumer Price Index data and information provided by 3,000 clients.

Are we allowed to require employees to receive their wages through paycards?

05/23/2014
Q. Our company wants to start using paycards instead of issuing paychecks to employees who do not use direct deposit. Is it legal to use payroll cards in California?