Wages & Hours

Walmart sees light, settles overtime pay lawsuit

06/18/2012

Walmart has agreed to pay $4.8 million to settle U.S. Department of Labor charges that it misclassified employees working at vision centers in the retail giant’s stores.

How can we legally cut all salaries by 10%?

06/14/2012

Q. We need to cut our payroll costs. Is there any reason we can’t cut everyone by 10%? All our employees are at-will.

Settlement after workers (and rabbis) say pay wasn’t kosher

06/08/2012

Brooklyn’s Flaum Appetizing has settled a long-running pay dispute with 20 Hispanic employees at its Williamsburg plant. The kosher food maker and deli agreed to pay the workers $577,000 to settle the dispute.

Commuting help isn’t reasonable accommodation

06/04/2012

Employers are supposed to provide reasonable accommodations that remove barriers to working for disabled workers. But those accommodations don’t have to include implementing changes that make a disabled employee’s commute easier.

Beware disciplining by withholding pay raises

06/01/2012

Any adverse employment action—including withholding an expected pay increase—can form the basis for a discrimination lawsuit. If you hold back raises to punish rule-breaking, make sure you can show you do so impartially.

DOL takes tough stance on enforcing tip rules

05/25/2012

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued final regulations that specify that employees’ tips are their sole property, regardless of whether employers take the tip credit.

To win wage case, worker must do more than contest records

05/25/2012

If you keep good records of the hours workers put in, chances are you’ll be able to beat an employee’s claim that he wasn’t paid for all hours worked. He’ll have to show some evidence that your records are wrong.

Employers offering more flexibility on when work happens, less on how much

05/24/2012

Employers are increasing employees’ options for managing when and where they work, while reducing some options that affect how much they work, according a new study by researchers at the Families and Work Institute.

How to handle pay for Guard and Reserve members

05/22/2012

If you have employees away on extended military deployments or who will train for two weeks this summer as members of the National Guard or Reserve, you face tricky pay problems.

It’s not just the feds: States crack down on contractor misclassification

05/19/2012

The DOL and IRS continue to aggressively enforce laws against misclassifying employees as independent contractors. But a major shift has taken hold in the past two years, with state legislatures and regulators actively taking a greater role in cracking down on companies that misclassify workers as independent contractors.