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FLSA

Child-labor violations cost $3.8 million, plus lost sales of compromised ‘hot goods’

01/17/2024
One of the U.S. Department of Labor’s enforcement priorities is eliminating the illegal use of child labor. In 2023, the DOL stepped up enforcement, levying hefty fines.

Effective March 11, new ‘independent contractor’ rule favors classifying workers as employees

01/10/2024
The Department of Labor has issued a new final rule that will make it harder for employers to classify workers as independent contractors, not employees. The rule, Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, will take effect March 11. That’s when employers must begin applying what the DOL calls an “economic realities test” to determine if someone is truly a contractor or if he or she should be classified as an employee.

A neat trick, if you can do it: Countersuing employees who bring an FLSA lawsuit to make them foot the bill

01/08/2024
This is the first case we’ve encountered where an employer sued employees for money related to its own violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

States considering tax incentives for employers that adopt four-day workweek

01/02/2024
Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about the benefits and desirability of a four-day workweek. If that came to pass, it would fundamentally change a standard set in 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act established a 40-hour workweek as the norm for American workers.

House Republicans condemn overtime rule

12/11/2023
The title was a tip-off. When the U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections met to address the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule, the Nov. 29 hearing was titled “Bad for Business: DOL’s Proposed Overtime Rule.”

New OT rule to be finalized in April

12/11/2023
If enacted, the rule would raise the white-collar overtime salary threshold to $55,068 per year, up from the current level of $35,568. An April 1 date for publishing the final rule would push back implementation until June at the earliest.

Wage & hour: Heed DOL’s $12 million warning to the hospitality industry

12/11/2023
The Department of Labor has been targeting restaurants and other hospitality-industry employers for aggressive enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It has issued fines and penalties and ordered restaurants to shut down until they pay up. That’s a powerful incentive for employers to settle lawsuits.

Lock her up! Defy DOL investigators, go to jail

12/04/2023
A federal court has ordered the owner of a Michigan senior home-care services company to go to prison if she continues to ignore a March 2023 order to provide U.S. Department of Labor investigators with time and pay records.

Warn managers against sending after-hours texts and emails to nonexempt subordinates

11/21/2023
Chances are, almost all your employees have mobile devices that let them send and receive texts and emails at any time. Advise managers of hourly employees not to send electronic messages to them outside working hours. That counts as work for which they must be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Tick tock, watch work off the clock

11/21/2023
Would you know compensable working time if you saw it? If you pay for noncompensable working time anyway, you can put conditions on your payment. Two cases illustrate.