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Wages & Hours

Take heart! DOL doesn’t win every case

05/01/2013
A company that contracted to provide gate attendants for oil fields has won its battle with the DOL over whether the workers are em­­ployees or independent contractors. The decision represents a big loss for the DOL, which sought repayment of more than $6 million in back wages—and has engaged in a nationwide campaign to force more employers to recognize independent contractors as employees.

Beware misclassifying inside sales staff

05/01/2013
Do you have employees classified as inside sales employees? If so, you may be courting trouble unless you are absolutely sure they qualify for the exemption. That’s especially true if you also don’t track any extra hours they work.

Garner landscaper illegally trimmed worker pay

04/30/2013
Garner-based KBE Landscaping will pay $14,651 in back pay to 33 em­­ployees after a Department of Labor investigation revealed the company failed to properly pay overtime to its hourly workers.

Employees sent on weekend training time: Does that affect their overtime pay?

04/26/2013

Q. We sent a few employees to training over a weekend. They weren’t required to attend, but the course will help them do their jobs better. We paid the hourly ­workers for that time, but not overtime. Do we owe them overtime if they worked 40 hours before the training session?


Supremes to hear U.S. Steel ‘changing clothes’ case

04/25/2013
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. Workers at the company’s Gary, Ind., plant claim they should be compensated for the time it takes them to change clothes for work at the work site.

How to draw DOL scrutiny: Withhold pay, fudge time sheets

04/25/2013

The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division doesn’t want to see any funny business when it comes to accurately recording hours worked or paying employees on time. Don’t even think about manipulating payroll systems. Doing so will result in double damages going back three years.

Landscaping company illegally trimmed wages

04/25/2013
Cyrilla Landscaping in Coraopolis, outside Pittsburgh, has agreed to pay $39,091 in back wages to 29 workers following a DOL investigation—plus another $39,091 because the feds found the violations were willful.

$1 million: The cost of not having enough time clocks

04/24/2013
Do your employees have to wait in line to punch their time clock? Heads up: Long lines of workers punching in and out has cost a California employer more than $1 million.

Another reason to let managers set their own hours

04/23/2013
Here’s incentive to give managers more control over their own schedules. It could prevent one dis­­gruntled employee from turning a simple lawsuit into a class action that covers everyone else with a similar job. That might make the difference between a small verdict and a huge one.

If pieceworker has downtime, you must pay at least minimum wage for those hours

04/23/2013
Do you employ workers on a piece-rate basis but require them to stick around when things are slow or perform other tasks between the piecework? If so, watch out!