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FLSA

Long Island restaurants must serve up $365k in back pay

02/18/2020
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has ordered the owners of three Long Island restaurants to pay 79 employees $365,000 in back pay and liquidated damages.

Labor Department issues two new wage-and-hour opinion letters

02/07/2020
In January, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued two opinion letters addressing wage-and-hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act. One involves discretionary bonuses while the second addresses whether some extra payments for exempt workers may affect their exemptions.

DOL: Texas Panhandle pipeline workers got the shaft

02/07/2020
A multinational pipeline repair corporation underpaid employees working on a project in the Texas Panhandle town of Borger, according to investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

State child labor violation costs $1.2 million

02/06/2020
Warning! State child labor laws can be far more strict than federal rules. If you have teen employees, it’s not enough to train your managers about federal youth employment rules. They need to understand state law, too.

AB 5—California’s new independent contractor law—comes under fire

02/03/2020
Opponents of California’s controversial new independent contractor law, AB 5, have moved to get a competing law on the ballot. They fear that if gig workers became employees, as they would under AB 5, it would raise some employer costs an estimated 30%.

Legal update: New bias protection, fluctuating workweek OT

01/28/2020
Two new labor and employment law developments require employers to review their policies. The first adds a new form of prohibited discrimination to the already long list of employer rules. The second clarifies how to handle fluctuating workweeks under the FLSA.

Certain settlement offers don’t require approval from federal court

01/28/2020
Good news for employers inclined to settle Fair Labor Standards Act claims before they go to trial: If you make your offer under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it doesn’t need a federal court’s review and approval.

Pregnancy accommodation bill approved by House committee

01/28/2020
A bipartisan bill that would require employers to offer specific accommodations to pregnant workers has cleared a key legislative hurdle.

DOL continues to pursue misclassification

01/23/2020
The Department of Labor is aggressively going after employers who don’t properly classify workers, even in industries where it is common to hire workers as independent contractors.

Joint employer? 3 scenarios to help you decide

01/23/2020
The new Department of Labor joint-employer rule that takes effect March 16 will make it less likely that more than one employer will be held liable for the same federal wage-and-hour violation. Here are three scenarios that illustrate how the rule will apply.