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Wages & Hours

What’s the required timing for final paychecks?

10/02/2009

Q. What are the deadlines for paying employees who are terminated or resign from employment?

Is it OK to withhold money from employees’ final paychecks to ensure we’re reimbursed?

10/02/2009

Q. Can I make deductions from an employee’s final paycheck for outstanding expenses or company property that the employee still has in his or her possession?

Austin grocer pays $186,624 for wage-and-hour violations

10/02/2009

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recently announced that MT Supermarket, an Austin grocery store, has paid $186,624 in back wages to 34 workers. The payment comes after an investigation of the Asian grocery store found violations of the FLSA.

Report blasts urban employers

10/01/2009

A controversial study of employment practices in the New York City region, Chicago and Los Angeles has found that employers routinely stiff low-paid workers, breaking wage-and-hour laws and illegally thwarting union organizing efforts.

Can we require employees to keep working despite inclement weather?

09/29/2009

Q. When there’s even a hint of bad weather, one of our employees goes home. Can we require her to work until the regular quitting time?

Must we pay employees to change their clothes?

09/23/2009

Q. Do we have to pay employees for the time they spend changing into their uniforms before work and out of their uniforms afterward? We’re a hospital and our operating-room personnel must change clothes.

Opinion letter: OK to cut hours, pay of exempt employees

09/21/2009

A California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement opinion letter has given the green light to an increasingly common employment practice in today’s fragile economy: Cutting exempt employees’ normal workweeks and then paying them proportionately less.

Rebound? Compensation up, but health costs remain high

09/18/2009

A new Watson Wyatt survey says 44% of employers plan to reverse pay cuts made during the recession. That’s up from 30% in June. Also, about one-third of employers plan to unfreeze salaries, up from 17%.

FLSA lawsuit cocktail: Hourly staff mixing work, lunch

09/18/2009

When is your most diligent worker also your biggest lawsuit risk? Answer: When that nonexempt employee works through his or her lunch break or during other off-the-clock hours—a fact nobody realizes (or turns a blind eye to) until he or she sues for unpaid overtime.

Can person be employee and independent contractor?

09/18/2009

Q. One of our full-time hourly employees has started a cleaning business on the side. We pay her a set amount for cleaning the offices on the weekend. Since this is an entirely different position, can we pay her as a 1099 independent contractor for the cleaning work if she’s also a full-time employee?