The US Department of Labor came out with its long awaited proposed joint employer rulemaking this week and once again tweaked its regulations on overtime calculations. The proposed joint employer regulation uses a four-part test to determine when a business should be held jointly libel for minimum wage and overtime law violations. Specifically, it proposes…
Read More »The House Education & Labor Committee, having made a 180 degree turn under democratic Chairman Representative Bobby Scott (VA), held a public hearing this week on H.R.7, known as the Paycheck Fairness Act. With 240 cosponsors in the House (all 239 democrat members and 1 republican), the legislation would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act…
Read More »Earlier this week, the US Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it was altering the procedure by which H-2B Visa applications will be processed. The change results from the system crash that DOL experienced early in January when the flood of H-2B visa applications overwhelmed and crashed their system. Going forward, all applications filed on…
Read More »Speaking of the overtime threshold exemption, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri weighed in recently when it granted conditional class certification under the FLSA to some overtime exempted employees. The Steak ‘n Shake employees were restaurant managers who the company had exempted from overtime under the executive and administrative exemptions. The…
Read More »The Department of Labor on Tuesday announced it was extending the Payroll Audit Independent Determination Program (PAID) for an additional six months. PAID is a voluntary compliance initiative that helps workers collect back wages due them in an expedited manner without having to wait for lengthy investigations to conclude or initiate court cases. Through PAID,…
Read More »The gridlock on joint employer notwithstanding, the Department of Labor (DOL) this week extended for three years the validity of current notices and medical certification forms for use in complying with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) The forms were set to expire last Friday, August 31, but have now been extended until…
Read More »The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling in Rodriguez v Taco Bell Corp. that requiring employees to eat employer-discounted meals in the restaurant violates neither the US Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or California Employment Law. Taco Bell offers its employees discounted meals for their required 30-minute meal breaks…
Read More »There have also been a number of other court cases decided, resurrected and/or revisited over the past few weeks that we thought you should be aware of as they all may be very much relevant to your business. Starbucks won the battle, but might be losing the war in a California case over cancer warnings…
Read More »Another interesting initiative in Congress seeks to deal with the proliferation over the past several years of so-called worker centers. These “worker centers” are thinly veiled union operations that operate outside federal labor law and skirt regulations that have been adopted to ensure that labor organizations operate within the law. H.R. 5665, filed by Florida…
Read More »The US Department of Labor is certainly taking a different approach to resolution of wage disputes with a new pilot program the department announced this week. DOL announced the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program on Tuesday of this week as a vehicle that will be operated by the Wage and Hour Division to help…
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