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Payroll

No pay for employee commute–even on ferry.

04/01/2003
To travel to and from their job at an island-based prison, a group of Washington state social workers had to take a daily 20-minute ferry ride. They weren’t paid for …

Hiring new college grads? Keep your salary offers in check

04/01/2003
You won’t face a bidding war with competitors over new college graduates. Reason: Starting pay for most new grads is lower than it was just one year ago, most notably in …

Audit your classifications before requiring overtime

04/01/2003

Q. What are the legal ramifications of requiring all employees to work a minimum of 45 hours a week (nine hours a day)? Everyone in the office is an exempt employee. —S.M., New Jersey

Don’t Require Direct Deposit

04/01/2003

Q. Can a business require employees to use direct deposit of paychecks? —N.C., Kansas

Hiring managers? You have more salary bargaining power

02/01/2003
Reason: Managers and professionals now make up 48 percent of those who fall in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ class of “chronically unemployed,” those who were jobless …

Reimburse any pre-employment costs that cut into minimum wage.

01/01/2003
Migrant workers at a Florida farm were required to pay expenses out of pocket for securing work visas and traveling to job sites. Because these costs amounted to “pre-employment deductions” from …

Noncash compensation counts toward minimum wage

01/01/2003
You probably don’t have employees living in your workplace, but a recent case illustrates your vulnerability to lawsuits if you keep workers tethered to the job, either physically or by phone, …

Don’t Allow Unlimited Sick Leave

01/01/2003

Q. Our company gives eight hours of sick leave per month to nonexempt employees. We’ve been told that, under the FLSA, exempt employees are to be paid whenever they are sick. So our exempt employees have virtually an unlimited sick-leave balance. Is this a correct way to interpret the FLSA? Should we have some type of sick-leave accrual and tracking for our exempts? —D.H., Kentucky

Person must be true employee to collect workers’ comp.

12/01/2002
Jerald Meyer was helping repair a wall at his wife’s restaurant when he fell from a ladder and suffered a serious brain injury. Meyer brought a claim under workers’ comp, claiming …

HR pay: Has it hit bottom?

12/01/2002
Didn’t get much of a raise in 2002? You’re not alone. The struggling economy held HR pay in check as companies kept a tight rein on salary hikes. Pay nudged …