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FLSA

Workers can’t sign away their rights to overtime

03/17/2022
A California home care agency was ordered last month to pay $315,000 in unpaid overtime to 158 workers. The owner unlawfully required hourly workers to sign an agreement to be paid straight time for each pay period.

Ensure bosses accurately track employee hours

02/17/2022
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to accurately track all the time employees work. In many organizations, the task falls to front-line managers and supervisors. That sometimes creates a conflict: Bosses under pressure to control labor costs may be tempted to require employees to work off the clock.

DOL raises penalties for 2022

02/15/2022
The Department of Labor has announced the 2022 inflation adjustments to penalties for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the FMLA and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Never manipulate pay or hours to avoid OT

02/10/2022
Tempted to play loose with the overtime rules to save money on labor? Bad idea. You will attract the Department of Labor’s attention.

Let FLSA guide policy on pay for vaccinations

02/03/2022
OSHA’s vaccinate-or-test mandate is gone, but confusion remains for employers with their own vax policies wondering whether they must pay employees for time they spend getting covid shots.

A $1.4 million lesson: Misclassifying workers can lead to personal liability

11/18/2021
Making the employee-or-independent-contractor decision should always be a well-researched and documented choice. One main reason: While most lawsuits claiming misclassification of independent contractors are brought against corporate entities, many federal and state laws also allow workers to sue company execs directly for personal liability in such cases.

Train executives on FLSA classification rules

11/11/2021
Plaintiffs’ lawyers love to file lawsuits alleging an employee was improperly classified as a manager under the Fair Labor Standards Act. That’s because just one misclassification mistake can force employers to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay and penalties. Avoid that fate by training everyone with the authority to set job duties, schedules and pay how to properly classify workers as either exempt or hourly.

Employees’ pandemic lawsuits continue to evolve

10/21/2021
The mandatory vaccination cases aren’t going anywhere soon, as employers and the federal government are leaning on such policies. But two recent decisions also remind us that pandemic-related lawsuits come in many flavors.

Small employer? FLSA probably still applies

09/09/2021
Most private-sector employers must comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act’s wage-and-hour rules, regardless of size. The law applies to employers that do a reasonable amount of business while engaged in interstate commerce.

Court tosses California gig-worker ballot initiative

08/24/2021
A California judge has ruled unconstitutional a state ballot initiative that allowed gig-economy platforms such as Lyft and Uber to classify drivers as independent contractors.