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FLSA

You can adjust salaries based on occasional business ups and downs

04/01/2005
Employees must be paid on a “salary basis” to be declared exempt from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In the past, some employers tried to evade that …

High court to answer ‘donning’ and ‘doffing’ questions

04/01/2005
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month to take up cases that could affect your payroll practices under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), particularly if you employ people who must …

New law aims to stem the tide of mega class-action lawsuits

04/01/2005
Employers won a big victory when President Bush signed legislation
Feb. 18 that aims to inject more fairness in the class-action lawsuit arena. The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 …

Office business manager: Exempt or nonexempt?

04/01/2005

Q. We’re a nine-physician medical clinic, and we employ a salaried business manager. She makes less than $100,000 but more than $23,660 per year. Her duties include personnel, hiring and firing, and office work. We don’t give her comp time or overtime pay. If she takes a partial day off, she must use vacation time (paid time off). In light of the new (FLSA, overtime) rules, are we handling this correctly? —B.B., Missouri

Where your religious-accommodation responsibilities stop

04/01/2005
Issue: How far must you go to oblige an employee’s religious practices under federal job-discrimination law?
Benefit: A new ruling says that you don’t need to accommodate religious requests when …

Monthly pay is OK, but keep payday consistent

04/01/2005

Q. Doesn’t federal law say employees must be paid within two weeks of completing their work, no matter the excuse (computer glitch, etc.)? —A.L., Virginia

Remind managers to prevent ‘off-the-clock’ work

03/01/2005
Telecom giant Cingular settled a Labor Department audit last month by paying $5.1 million in back wages to more than 25,000 customer-service reps and agreeing to create a new time-reporting review …

You can exclude vacation pay from ‘Regular rate’

03/01/2005

Q. When we are figuring employees’ base pay for overtime calculations, can we exclude their vacation pay? —R.J.D., South Dakota

Employ teens? Review new list
of ‘too dangerous’ positions

02/01/2005
The U.S. Labor Department unveiled new limitations on the type of responsibilities you can hand teen employees in certain industries. The new regulations, which take effect Feb. 14, revise child-labor rules …

Encourage staff volunteerism, but don’t link it to pay, promotion

02/01/2005
Heads up: More employers are heaping legal trouble on themselves by tracking employees’ volunteerism ef-forts and, in some cases, using that information (either directly or indirectly) as a prerequisite for promotions …