• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

FLSA

California: Uber driver an employee, not a contractor

06/19/2015
Sharing-economy employers, take note: Your innovative business model doesn’t mesh well with traditional interpretations of employment law. The latest evidence: The California Labor Commissioner’s determination that an Uber driver is an employee, not an independent contractor.

Court: No FLSA poster equals unlimited liability

06/11/2015
For want of a thumbtack, the Fair Labor Standards Act’s statute of limitations didn’t run. In a case involving a domestic worker’s pay dispute but equally applicable to any employment situation, a federal appeals court ruled that failing to display the Department of Labor’s minimum wage poster meant an employer was on the hook for years of wage-and-hour violations.

Retailers react to white-collar OT prospects

06/09/2015
Retail and restaurant employers will likely respond to the upcoming rewrite of white-collar overtime rules by converting salaried managers to hourly employees, cutting pay, reducing benefits and bonuses and reducing workers’ hours, according to a new study by the National Retail Federation).

Minimum wage wars move to local level

06/05/2015
Los Angeles is the latest municipality to stop waiting for federal or state action on minimum wage legislation. The L.A. City Council voted 14-1 to raise its current $9 an hour minimum wage to $15 by 2020, a move that will give a pay raise to half the city’s workforce.

New DOL rules could blacklist fed contractors

06/02/2015
Current and prospective federal contractors that violate employment laws could be barred from doing business with Uncle Sam if new proposed rules from the Department of Labor go through.

DOL touts efforts enforcing FLSA in Texas oil fields

05/29/2015
The U.S. Department of Labor claims a recent enforcement initiative in the oil fields of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico has resulted in workers recovering $1.3 million in lost wages. The DOL Wage and Hour Division oil and gas initiative began in late 2014.

Beware legal risks of raising employees’ titles in lieu of pay

05/29/2015
When budgets for raises are lean, it’s tempting to reward employees with a better title than a hefty pay increase. That’s risky.

Houston strip club owners appeal jury’s award to dancers

05/29/2015
The legal dance between Tiffany’s Cabaret in Houston and two former performers is not quite over. The club’s parent company has appealed a jury’s six-figure award to the exotic dancers.

9th Circuit decision: Car dealership service advisors are nonexempt employees

05/20/2015
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that so-called automobile service advisors are nonexempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Must we pay for time spent preparing to work?

05/18/2015
Q. We have an employee who regularly comes into work a half-hour or more before her scheduled shift in order to get her work station ready and otherwise get herself set up for the day. This preparation time is important to the employee because she does not believe that she can meet the production requirements of her job without it. The employee has been told that she cannot start performing her actual job tasks until the start of her scheduled shift. Our new HR manager has advised that we must pay the employee for the time that she spends preparing for her shift, even though she had no approval to work during that time. Is that right?