Wages & Hours

Sushi case shows how complicated tip credit can be

02/09/2010

A recent Florida case illustrates just how complicated the tip credit provision of the FLSA can be. In that case, a hostess at a Sushi Samba restaurant claims the restaurant forfeited its right to claim the tip credit because it distributed tips to employees who weren’t eligible to receive them. The controversy turns on the question of whether sushi chefs are tip-eligible employees.

Can we split a shift to avoid overtime?

02/09/2010

Q. We have an employee whose job requires her to perform check-in tasks for about an hour at the beginning of the day. She is then needed to perform certain check-out tasks eight hours later at the end of the day. During the remainder of her workday she performs various administrative services. To manage her time and avoid overtime, we began asking her to take an extra hour break during the middle of the day. She says she doesn’t want to take this additional break. Can we require her to take the additional breaks so that we don’t have to pay her overtime?

How can you rein in rogue ‘early clockers’?

02/05/2010

Do you have employees who clock in before their shift starts, then stand around drinking coffee for a half-hour? How can you cut down on this “on-the-clock-but-standing-around” time? …

Are your ‘admin’ workers really salespeople?

02/01/2010

It’s time to take a fresh look at how you classify your sales and administrative employees—because attorneys across New York will be on the lookout for good class-action lawsuits in the wake of a recent decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

How should we handle mandatory overtime when determining FMLA leave hours?

01/27/2010

Q. Can an employer deduct or count overtime hours from an employee’s FMLA balance? Our employees work overtime only from October through December. During that time, they’re required to work 12-hour days, seven days a week. We have several employees on both continuous FMLA and intermittent leave, and we’d like to deduct the overtime hours they would have worked from their FMLA allotment. What do you think?

What are the notice requirements when moving someone from exempt to nonexempt?

01/27/2010

Q. We’re planning to demote an employee for performance reasons. He’d move from a supervisory job (salaried/exempt) to an hourly job, so we would cut his pay by about $10,000 a year. What kind of notice must we give him regarding the pay cut and exemption status?

Who gets paid first: employees or creditors?

01/22/2010

Q. My small construction business is closing its doors, and we have limited funds with which to pay employees and numerous creditors. What should we do? Who should we pay first?

The DOL is delivering on its vow to hire more investigators

01/20/2010

The threat of more rigorous enforcement—the U.S. Department of Labor now has 250 more wage-and-hour cops—is yet another reason to double-check to see whether your exempt employees are truly exempt.

10 ways to welcome vets into your workforce

01/19/2010

More than 400,000 U.S. citizens retire or separate from the military every year—and most of them look for jobs when they do. Companies such as Union Pacific Railroad, GE and Home Depot actively recruit veterans. Your organization could probably benefit from hiring military veterans. To attract them, align your recruiting and employee benefits with their needs.

Must all hours count toward OT ‘total hours’?

01/18/2010

Q. We currently pay employees for time spent driving from the office to work sites. We pay minimum wage for that driving time, but we don’t count those hours toward “total hours” worked for the week. That keeps overtime down because their hours aren’t accumulating until they arrive at the job site. Is this OK?