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FLSA

Wage-and-Hour compliance: How to win the numbers game

12/01/2007

Have you or any of your organization’s supervisors ever given the go-ahead to hourly employees to work through lunch so they could leave work an hour early for a special occasion? Sure you have. Who hasn’t? But know this: Every time you do it, you’re probably breaking the law …

Greengrocer to pay $675,000 to underpaid workers

12/01/2007

Rossman Fruit and Vegetable, a Brooklyn discount greengrocer, agreed to pay $675,000 in back wages to 222 employees to settle a U.S. Labor Department lawsuit. The settlement covers payments below minimum wage and unpaid time-and-a-half for overtime hours from 2001 to 2005 …

Do supervisors’ ‘Unofficial’ employee files raise any legal red flags?

12/01/2007

Q. We have several supervisors who insist on keeping their own private files on employees in their departments, especially to record absences and comp days. Is this legal? …

Commissions, overtime and the Fair Labor Standards Act

12/01/2007

Q. We have a number of employees who are paid on a commission basis. Are they exempt from overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act? …

Disciplining tardy, exempt employees

12/01/2007

Q. We have an exempt employee who is consistently late a few times a week, arriving anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours late. Can we discipline him for being consistently late? In addition, can we require him to work at set times—for example from 9 am to 5 pm? …

Salaried employees running out of leave

12/01/2007

Q. If a salaried employee has used up all vacation and sick time, yet wants to take more vacation or calls in sick, can we make deductions from his pay? If not, what can we do? We don’t want the employees getting out of hand …

Preparing for Florida’s minimum wage hike

12/01/2007

Florida’s minimum wage rises to $6.79 per hour on Jan. 1, 2008. Florida law requires the Agency for Workforce Innovation to adjust the minimum wage annually to reflect changes in the U.S. Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers in the South. The index rose 1.85% in the year ending Sept. 1, 2007 …

Can we dock pay if worker exceeds sick-Leave limit?

12/01/2007

Q. A salaried employee used all his vacation and sick time. He’s allowed 21 days and so far has used 22 this year. He wants to take more vacation in December and is always sick (so he’ll probably be out more). Can I deduct his pay if he’s out more? Or can I take days from next year? — R.E., Pennsylvania …

Time to come clean: car washes handed $1.6 million in citations

12/01/2007

The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) recently conducted two days of sweeps at approximately 100 car washes in six Southern California counties, uncovering an array of employment law violations …

SoCal contractor pays $200,000 in back wages to employees

12/01/2007

The U.S. Labor Department announced that a Southern California company paid $200,013 in back wages for unpaid overtime to 231 current and former employees. Memo Scaffolding, which specializes in setting up scaffolding for residential and commercial construction projects, also paid $60,000 incivil penalties …