FLSA

‘Economic reality’ decides who’s an independent contractor, who’s an employee

06/19/2017

The more factors that show the workers are indeed in business for themselves, the more likely they should not be classified as employees, but as independent contractors instead.

Acosta: DOL to begin new round of OT rules revision

06/12/2017

Brace yourself for an epic do-over of the salary-threshold rules that determine which white-collar workers are eligible for overtime pay.

DOL pulls Obama-era wage & hour guidance

06/12/2017

The U.S. Department of Labor is pulling the plug on two pieces of informal guidance affecting independent contractor misclassification and joint employment that were issued during the Obama administration.

Bill would raise overtime threshold in California

06/06/2017

Assembly Member Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) has proposed raising California’s overtime threshold to the higher of $3,956 per month ($47,472 annually) or twice the state’s minimum wage for executive, administrative and or professional employees.

Title alone doesn’t make someone a manager

06/06/2017

As far as the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and California’s wage-and-hour-laws are concerned, how you label a job is absolutely irrelevant to its genuine exempt/nonexempt status. Classification is based solely on the work the employee performs. Put simply, calling someone a manager doesn’t make him one.

DNC sued for unpaid OT

05/24/2017

More than 40 field organizers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee, alleging they weren’t paid for overtime hours they spent making phone calls and knocking on doors during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Keep accurate pay records–or prepare for court to take employee’s word for it

05/16/2017

If you fail to keep tabs and the worker sues, it’s generally his word against yours as to how many hours per day and per week the employee worked. That can result in a big back-pay bill, especially if the court doubles the damages as permitted under both federal and state law.

How should we handle exempt employees’ sick leave taken under our PTO plan?

05/10/2017

Q. The FLSA requires that we pay the full salary for any week in which the exempt employee performs any work. We have a sick leave plan for all employees included in our paid time off—or PTO—plan. If an exempt employee calls off sick, we dock her PTO available, which includes sick or vacation. In other words, our PTO isn’t split into sick and vacation pay. Can we dock this bank until it’s gone before we pay her for nonwork days?

Comp time could become option for most employers

04/27/2017

A bill working its way through the House of Representatives would allow private-sector employers to offer comp time in lieu of overtime pay.

Overtime rules still dead, hearing delayed until June 30

04/25/2017

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A federal court has agreed to a Department of Labor administration request to postpone its defense of the yet-to-be-enacted overtime rules finalized last year.