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FLSA

Pittsburgh café to serve up back pay to employees

12/18/2012
The Point Brugge Café, in Pitts­­burgh’s East End, must pay $37,719 to 39 workers that the U.S. Depart­­ment of Labor says were stiffed by an illegal tip-pooling system.

DOL: Horsham steakhouse gauchos got gouged

12/18/2012
The parent company of na’Brasa Brazilian Steakhouse in Horsham will pay $110,369 to 42 workers following a DOL investigation that concluded the restaurant misclassified servers in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

FLSA personal liability hits some, misses others

12/13/2012
The Fair Labor Standards Act is expansive enough to classify individual managers and corporate officers as employers. Upshot: You can be individually liable for FLSA violations. Key: the amount and degree of operational control you have over employees.

Can’t stop employee from working off the clock? Fire him for willful misconduct

12/12/2012
What can employers do when em­­ployees insist on clocking out and continuing to work? Warn them—and then discipline them. If you terminate employees for refusing to listen, they won’t be eligible for un­­em­­ployment compensation and you will also protect your company from an overtime lawsuit.

Feds trim $106K in back pay from Midland landscaper

12/03/2012
Seventy current and former landscaping employees will rake in $106,818 following a U.S. Depart­­ment of Labor investigation of their Midland employer’s wage-and-hour practices.

Motel cleaned up at housekeepers’ expense

11/30/2012
Veer Investments—which ­operates an America’s Best Value Inn & Suites motel in Charlotte—careened wildly off course when it decided to ignore almost all the basic requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Overtime settlement puts dent in body shop’s profit

11/30/2012
Jacksonville-based Brynn Marr Body Shop has agreed to settle overtime complaints filed by 15 employees, following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Exempt or nonexempt? Forget 50% rule for store managers who must multitask

11/30/2012
Good news for employers that list store managers as exempt even though they spend 50% or more of their time engaging in mundane tasks like stocking, running registers and assisting customers. Managers may be multitasking but that doesn’t mean they’re nonexempt.

Contractor or employee? 5 steps to keep you out of harm’s way

11/19/2012

How can you ensure that the IRS or state authorities won’t challenge the status of workers you call contractors? And how can you avoid being sued by a contractor who claims he’s an em­­ployee entitled to benefits? Follow these five steps.

Should we be paying overtime to employee who receives after-hours phone calls?

11/16/2012

Q. One of our office managers regularly receives after-hours calls from our landlord about building management issues. Are we required to pay her overtime compensation for the resulting hours she works over eight in one day or over 40 in one week?