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FLSA

A Costly Lesson in Allowing Off-the-Clock Work

06/01/2006

Make sure supervisors understand what counts as "paid time" and remind them that they should not encourage employees to work off the clock. Example of the risk: Compass Bank of Birmingham, Ala., recently shelled out more than $1 million in unpaid overtime to 2,961 employees …

Professional exemption limited when applied to medical staff

06/01/2006

Don’t assume that medical employees with advanced training and licenses meet the FLSA’s "learned profession" exemption, which allows employers to pay lawyers and doctors by the hour and still not pay them …

Paying for driving time depends on departure point

06/01/2006

Q. We have a sports reporter (an hourly employee) who is being sent to cover a state tournament. Should we pay for the time it takes her to drive to the event and back? —D.L., Washington

Overtime court battles on the rise and expected to continue

04/01/2006

Rather than calming the turbulent legal waters, the revamping of the federal overtime laws in 2004 has churned up even more disputes and lawsuits …

Must You Pay Employees for ‘Encouraged’ Volunteer Work?

04/01/2006

A new Labor Department opinion letter says that you don’t need to pay nonexempt employees for time spent working on volunteer civic events, such as building Habitat for Humanity houses, even if your organization encourages such activities and links them to the organization’s incentive-pay plan …

Mandatory Off-Site Counseling Sessions May Be Paid ‘Work Time’

03/01/2006

If you require hourly employees to attend counseling or training workshops outside normal working hours as a condition of employment, you may need to pay employees for those hours. You may also need to pay the employees’ travel time, too …

Lesson of IBM overtime suit: Clarify exemption status

03/01/2006

IBM faces the possibility of multimillion-dollar legal damages if a court grants class-action status to a pending FLSA lawsuit …

Cutting hours is legal, but anticipate bias claims

03/01/2006

Q. Can we legally reduce the hours of full-time employees in one of our divisions because this division needs to cut overhead? —J.B., Massachusetts

Who pays the tax on gift cards given to employees?

03/01/2006

Q. We plan to give gasoline gift cards to employees as incentives for picking up additional shifts. Are these cards taxable? Can we, the employer, simply pay the employee’s portion of the taxes? —T.M., Pennsylvania

States become key battleground in the minimum wage fight

02/01/2006

It may be the Year of the Dog on the Chinese calendar, but it’s shaping up to be the year of the "living wage" in many states. Already, 17 states and the District of Columbia have legislated higher minimums than the federal $5.15 per hour rate …