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FLSA

Is it legal to offer comp time?

04/28/2011
Q. Some of our full-time, salaried employees have to put in a lot of extra time for off-hours meetings and additional workload responsibilities. Is it legal to give these employees extra time off from work?

If employee has authority to hire and fire, is he automatically eligible for exempt classification?

04/28/2011
Q. Our mailroom supervisor is currently classified as exempt because his position includes qualifications such as hiring and firing the mailroom staff. But for the most part, he mainly performs mailroom duties. Have we classified him correctly?

Can we rearrange worker’s hours to avoid OT?

04/26/2011
A new customer demands delivery on a weekend. A crush of work means shifts will have to keep running at unusual hours. Either way, you’re staring down the possibility that you’ll have to pay overtime. Can you legally avoid OT by altering workers’ regular schedules so no one works more than 40 hours in a workweek?

Can we rearrange worker’s hours to avoid OT?

04/21/2011
Q. We have laborers who work from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. A job needs to be done on a Saturday. We want to ask the employees to take time off later in the week once they have hit 40 hours. Are we able to ask them to do that?

Review exempt/nonexempt status in wake of court decision on administrative exception

04/20/2011
Good news for employers: The Court of Appeal of California has found that claims adjusters are exempt administrative employees not entitled to overtime. The court rejected the notion that all claims adjusters who work for insurance companies are nonexempt employees without regard to the work they actually perform.

Class action could pair employees, contractors

04/14/2011
Do you try to cut labor costs by hiring independent contractors to do employees’ jobs? If so, consider this risk: Both employees and independent contractors who do the same or similar work could join together and sue over unpaid wages and overtime.

Exempt employee does some hourly work? Here’s how to preserve exempt classification

04/14/2011
Here’s some help for HR professionals trying to do all they can to safeguard their organization’s exempt/nonexempt employee classifications—especially in an economic climate that requires companies to do more with less:

2011’s biggest wage-and-hour issues–and what to do about them

04/06/2011

This year is shaping up to be a tough one for organizations worried about employment law issues. So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided three big employment law cases—and every time, ruled in favor of employees. The latest expanded employer retaliation liability under the FLSA. But that’s not this year’s only press­ing wage-and-hour problem. Pay atten­tion to these other issues:

Overtime suit takes big slice out of pizzeria

04/06/2011

Mama’s Pizzeria in Copiage will be serving up $780,000 in back pay and liquidated damages to its 40 employees to settle a federal lawsuit. An investigation by Wage and Hour officials found that many of Mama’s employees were forced to work 70 to 80 hours a week without receiving overtime pay.

FLSA violations cost Houston grocer $2 million

04/06/2011
A Houston-based grocery chain, Hong Kong Group Inc., has paid $2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging wage-and-hour violations that involved phony payroll records and attempts to coerce employees into returning pay they had already received.