As the holiday lights start to fade, we come to one of the most anticipated times of the year – bonus season!
Such a happy time. Who doesn’t love getting a bonus, and what employer doesn’t like rewarding good performance...more
Q. We use the tip credit for servers who work in our restaurant. When service is slow, we ask our servers to pitch in with other jobs around the restaurant, like sweeping up the dining room and cleaning the restroom. ...more
12/18/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Deregulation ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Job Duties ,
Minimum Wage ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Q. Our company’s busy season is coming up, meaning we will be asking employees to work longer hours. Our non-exempt employees will all receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week....more
There’s nothing like a looming deadline to prompt action. Back in August, Governor Rauner signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act that, for the first time, requires Illinois employers to...more
If you’ve been paying attention to the news relating to wage and hour law (and really, who isn’t?), you may recently have heard quite a bit about new federal rules on tipped employees, and more recently Congress stepping in...more
4/12/2018
/ Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Deregulation ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Field Assistance Bulletins ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
New Legislation ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
You may have read about the U.S. Department of Labor’s new “Payroll Audit Independent Determination” or “PAID’’ pilot program. Under this program, the DOL invites employers to voluntarily audit their payroll practices and...more
There’s been plenty of press regarding the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed rules governing employer treatment of tips. Commentators are debating whether the proposed changes are a sensible return to the four corners of...more
12/11/2017
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Wage and Hour
On September 28, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in which the Court will be asked to decide whether the FLSA’s overtime exemption covering “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling...more
Q. Our organization has a policy of paying employees who perform certain kinds of work outside of regular business hours at 1-1/2 times their regular hourly rates. Do we have to pay additional overtime pay for these...more
Earlier yesterday, Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued his final ruling in State of Nevada et al. v. United States Department of Labor, et al. Judge Mazzant granted the...more
Employers who rely on the fluctuating workweek method to calculate overtime for employees should take a few minutes to review a new ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that draws some new lines around when the...more
While not strictly speaking a wage and hour issue, here is a heads-up to any employers that use timekeeping systems featuring biometric security, like a thumbprint or fingerprint scanner...
...more
On June 30, the U.S. Department of Labor filed its long-awaited brief announcing the new administration’s position on the ongoing litigation over the FLSA overtime exemption rules published last May. As readers may recall,...more
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division announced today that it is bringing back the WHD Opinion Letter.
Opinion letters have long been one of the most useful resources for lawyers and HR professionals trying...more
On June 7, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced the withdrawal of two Administrator Interpretations (“AIs”) issued under the Obama administration regarding joint employment and independent contractors. ...more
6/9/2017
/ Administrative Interpretation ,
Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Definition ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Joint Employers ,
Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA) ,
Misclassification ,
Staffing Agencies ,
Wage and Hour
Q. Our company would like to enter a team in a local 5K charity race to do some good for the community and provide some positive PR for the company. Do we have to pay employees for time spent in this activity?
...more
If not, you might have a problem.
In 2011, the U.S. DOL published a regulation mandating that restaurants who count tips toward the minimum wage as permitted under the Fair Labor Standards Act have to notify employees...more
Q. Our school district has hourly, non-exempt employees who occasionally perform extra work for the district – for example, chaperoning a school dance, or taking tickets at home games. Do we need to track the hours that...more
President Trump has had a busy week since his inauguration: ordering construction of a wall, starting to unwind the ACA, arguing with the media about how many people attended his inauguration – the list goes on. One thing...more
Last week, outgoing Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez released a farewell “Memorandum to the American People.” It mostly reads as a recap of the DOL’s news releases over the past several years, touting various DOL initiatives...more
Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has decided that he will not halt the lawsuit challenging the U.S. DOL’s new overtime exemption rules pending a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court...more
1/5/2017
/ AFL-CIO ,
Appeals ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
A number of new state or local laws are set to take effect in Illinois in 2017 which will require employers to update their employee handbooks, employment agreements, and other policies and procedures. We address the key...more
12/23/2016
/ Bereavement Leave ,
Domestic Workers ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Privacy Rights ,
Employment Contract ,
Forced Retirement ,
Human Trafficking ,
Minimum Wage ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Paid Sick Leave Act ,
Passwords ,
Posting Requirements ,
Sick Leave ,
Social Media ,
State and Local Government ,
Victims' Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA)
On December 12, 2016, the EEOC issued a new Q&A style document entitled “Depression, PTSD, & Other Mental Health Conditions in the Workplace: Your Legal Rights.”
While clearly aimed at employees with mental health...more
Just a quick update on a couple of our recent stories for you wage and hour litigation junkies:
Back on December 5, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a case in which two former...more
The pending court fight between the U.S. DOL and a coalition of states and business groups over the new overtime exemption rules will not be resolved before President Obama leaves office in January, even though the 5th...more