In hiring employees, can you just give them a salary bump or must you look at their soon-to-be coworkers to decide the correct amount? This is a hotly debated issue right now, and, as with many things, it depends on where you...more
The Department of Labor now has issued guidance, questions and answers, and a poster for those employers covered by the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)...more
A February 2020 jury verdict against county music star Martina McBride’s production company highlights – albeit indirectly – the perils of unpaid internship programs and the issues they can cause under the Fair Labor...more
2/27/2020
/ Compensatory Damages ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Internships ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Multi-Factor Test ,
Primary Beneficiary Test ,
Retaliation ,
Unpaid Interns ,
Wage and Hour ,
Whistleblowers
The Department of Labor recently issued a final rule about how to calculate an employee’s regular rate of pay for overtime purposes under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As everyone knows, under the FLSA you have to pay...more
1/13/2020
/ Compensation & Benefits ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Regulations ,
New Rules ,
Over-Time ,
Rate of Pay ,
Wage and Hour
The sometimes agonizingly slow Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to be more efficient. According to the latest Agency Financial Report, in fiscal year 2019 the EEOC reduced the level of pending private sector...more
When, if ever, is swearing at your supervisor or coworkers a federally protected activity? The National Labor Relations Board (Board) currently is reconsidering what constitutes protected activity under the National Labor...more
Employers who seek to sponsor foreign workers for cap-subject H-1B visas in 2020 will likely see a big change in the process – the use of an electronic pre-registration system that many believe will improve efficiency and...more
11/15/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Electronic Filing ,
Filing Requirements ,
Foreign Workers ,
H-1B ,
Highly-Skilled Workers Visa ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Immigrants ,
Lottery ,
USCIS ,
Visa Caps ,
Visas
In an important wage-and-hour decision for franchisors, Salazar, et al. v. the McDonald’s Corp., et al., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that employees of one of the hamburger giant’s California-based franchisees...more
10/2/2019
/ Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Joint Employers ,
McDonalds ,
State Labor Laws ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
If you want to avoid potential liability from a former employee, remember a key maxim: Stick to your story about why you made the employment decision. If an employer shifts rationales for its decision or tries to pile on by...more
9/10/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Jury Trial ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Piling-On ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination
Sometimes employment laws can make the common person’s head spin. That certainly could be the case for a recent Fifth Circuit opinion examining the “highly compensated” regulatory exemption from the overtime requirements of...more
9/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Independent Contractors ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Summary Judgment ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
An employee is on maternity leave and it does not look like she is going to be returning to work. Should you go ahead and terminate her employment during the maternity leave? Wait until it is over to terminate her employment?...more
What constitutes a racially hostile work environment? Is one really bad comment specifically aimed at the plaintiff sufficient or do you need a sustained series of racial comments? What if you have both but no evidence that...more
10/4/2018
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Performance Reviews ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Racial Bias ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment
In this #MeToo era, employers are, understandably, a little sensitive when someone raises a claim of harassment. Even with the heightened sense of peril, companies should remember that if they are doing the right thing—having...more
When you promote someone into a position, do you have to pay him what you paid his predecessor? As with so many things – it depends. Can you pay less if the promotee has less experience and a lower prior salary than the...more
2/28/2018
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Pay Act ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Reversal ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
Before the Americans with Disabilities Act (and there was a time before the ADA), it was not uncommon to require employees to have a doctor’s note returning them to work “with no restrictions.” That won’t work in today’s ADA...more
You know that short non-solicitation policy in your handbook that says don’t handout stuff at work that doesn’t have to do with work that you think is clearly legal? Think again. A recent Eleventh Circuit decision agreed with...more
A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge has struck down Caesar’s Entertainment Corporation’s policy that prohibited employees’ using the company email system to distribute “nonbusiness” information. Why, you ask?...more
A recent Eleventh Circuit case under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) approved Dollar General’s termination of an employee on leave. The timing of Dollar General’s decision...more