FLSA

New DOL rule loosens restrictions on unpaid internships

01/11/2018

The Department of Labor under the Trump administration has rescinded the six-factor test and now uses a “primary beneficiary test” in which seven factors are weighed.

Joint employment definition takes a pro-employer turn

01/09/2018

A new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board has defined a joint employer as one that exercises “direct and immediate” control over worker activities. For employers, that’s a welcome return to normal after two years of uncertainty.

DOL revisiting paid internship rules

01/09/2018

The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division will begin revising its enforcement guidance for determining if interns must be paid, according to a Jan. 5 statement.

Training may be nonexempt even for exempt staff

01/03/2018

Do you offer an extended training period for newly hired workers who will be performing high-skill, exempt administrative jobs? If so, you may have to treat them as hourly workers during the training period when they are not actually performing work, but learning how to do their new jobs.

Employee’s lack of records won’t get pay lawsuit tossed, so make sure yours are accurate

01/03/2018

Workers who claim they should have been paid overtime don’t have to come forward with detailed pay records to move the case into discovery. That’s because record keeping is the employer’s responsibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Talula’s Garden settles OT suit for nearly $400k

01/02/2018

Talula’s Garden, the renowned farm-to-table restaurant in Philadelphia’s Washington Square, will have to pay 63 workers $197,917 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages.

Snyder-Lance pays $1.6 mil to settle misclassification suit

01/02/2018

A federal judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania has signed off on a $1.6 million agreement between snack maker Snyder-Lance and its route drivers.

Employment law by the numbers: Know which laws count

12/20/2017

Businesses must stay abreast of an alphabet soup of federal laws—ADA, ADEA, FMLA and so forth—each with its own requirements. Further complicating matters, most states have their own laws that override the federal requirements. To comply, you first must know which laws apply to your business.

Misclassification doesn’t matter if pay meets minimum

12/18/2017

What happens if you misclassify an independent contractor and it turns out she should have been an hourly employee? Regardless of status, you don’t have to worry about meeting a minimum wage requirement if she earned enough to average out to the minimum wage.

Track hours worked … unless you want court to

12/06/2017

If you haven’t kept track of all worker hours, a court will ask employees for their estimates. And if the court thinks that isn’t accurate either, it will come up with its own estimate. That’s what happened in one recent case.