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Wages & Hours

Mother Monster’s personal assistant seeks more OT pay

03/05/2013
Lady Gaga’s former personal assistant wants the flamboyant performer and cultural phenomenon to cough up another $400,000 in back overtime pay. Claiming she was on call 24/7, the assistant’s lawsuit says she should have been paid overtime for 128 hours per week in addition to her $75,000 a year salary.

Long Island restaurants can’t duck fair pay

02/07/2013
A chain of three Long Island Asian restaurants will pay more than $1 million in back wages and penalties to 255 current and former employees who were underpaid.

Could nonexempts’ use of smartphones cause wage-and-hour liability?

02/01/2013
Hourly employees’ use of smartphones (as well as online email access from remote locations) has boosted worker productivity. However, it has also substantially increased the risk of off-the-clock-work violations.

Texas agencies settle with Feds over pay disparities

02/01/2013
The U.S. Department of Justice and the EEOC have an­­nounced a settlement with two Texas state agen­­cies, resolving pay discrimination allegations at a state department that no longer exists.

In Austin, half-baked pay scheme costs dough

02/01/2013
Chuy’s Panaderia Bakery, which oper­­ates two locations in Austin, has agreed to settle charges of failing to pay the federal minimum wage to 101 employees.

Steakhouse staff worked to the bone for lean pay

02/01/2013
Raleigh’s Brasa Brazilian Steak-house will pay $68,482 to 18 workers after the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division found the steakhouse failed to pay workers overtime when they worked more than 40 hours in a week.

From New York to New Mexico: It’s legal to adjust pay based on local standards

01/31/2013

Don’t let pay concerns get in the way of a transfer. Feel free to adjust compensation to account for different market rates in different locations. Courts have said it’s perfectly fine to adjust salaries to suit local standards. Just make sure your compensation decisions are consistent when it comes to protected characteristics.

Time traps when employees clock in before shift starts

01/29/2013
Q. Some of our employees punch in 30 minutes before their shifts are scheduled to begin, and by doing so, they’re racking up overtime. They’ve been told many times not to do this, but they don’t listen. Do we have to pay them for the time after they clock in but before their shifts begin?

San Francisco grocer held too much green

01/22/2013
The San Francisco grocery store chain Casa Guadalupe and its owner have agreed to pay more than $120,000 to settle a wage-and-hour lawsuit filed by the DOL. The owner admitted to investigators that he willfully failed to issue time-and-a-half overtime pay to employees who worked more than 40 hours in a week.

Employers have leeway in docking exempts’ pay

01/18/2013
Employees must receive a guaranteed salary of $455 a week and perform exempt duties to be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions. But that doesn’t mean you can never dock their pay.