On January 12, 2024, the District of Columbia joined a growing list of jurisdictions with wage transparency laws after Mayor Muriel Bowser signed into law the Wage Transparency Omnibus Amendment Act of 2023 (the “Act”). The Act amends parts of the Wage Transparency Act of 2014, as well as introduces several new employee-friendly requirements that … Continue Reading
On October 28, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued its Final Rule on tipped wages. As Presidential administrations have changed through the years, so too has the DOL’s view regarding the circumstances under which employers can pay tipped workers less than the federal minimum wage. [See this 2019 post for the immediately prior … Continue Reading
On January 6, 2021, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced a final rule clarifying the standard under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor versus an employee. This distinction in critical under the FLSA, as employers must comply with its minimum wage and overtime requirements for employees, … Continue Reading
Throughout 2020, we have provided updates on the adoption of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), its implementing regulations, and its amended regulations. In these updates, we have noted that the FFCRA – which provides emergency paid sick leave and paid emergency family leave for certain COVID-19-related reasons to public sector employees and employees … Continue Reading
During the week of June 22, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) issued three Field Assistance Bulletins, each providing guidance to WHD field staff regarding three unique compliance issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, on June 25, 2020, the DOL released five fact-specific opinion letters discussing various … Continue Reading
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale. In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading
California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed a new batch of worker-friendly laws sponsored by Democrats in the California Assembly and Senate. These laws cover a range of topics from arbitration agreements to workplace safety. AB 51 will garner particular attention because not only does it substantially prohibit arbitration agreements, it criminalizes them. The new law … Continue Reading
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employers are required to pay non-exempt employees a minimum hourly wage of $7.25. However, employers with “tipped employees” are able to pay such employees a cash wage of $2.13 per hour and take a “tip credit” toward their minimum wage obligation to make up the difference between the … Continue Reading
Come January 1, 2018, employees in California and New York will enjoy new and expanded rights to time off work, with pay, to attend to certain family needs. New York, whose law was enacted in 2016 (see our prior post here), boasts its law as being the nation’s “strongest and most comprehensive” on paid family … Continue Reading
In early August, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued two decisions regarding class and collective action waivers. Like its earlier decisions in D.R. Horton, Inc. and Murphy Oil USA, Inc., both decisions supported employers’ use of waivers to eliminate group lawsuits against them in employment cases. The two new cases, … Continue Reading
Oregon is the first state to mandate that the state’s largest employers in the retail industry, as well as in the hospitality and food service industries – those with more than 500 workers – provide employees with their schedules, in writing, at least a week ahead of time. They’ll also have to give workers a … Continue Reading
Many employers maintain policies that restrict the amount of time an employee can take off from work, or that prohibit employees who are ineligible for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act to take time off from work at all even when ill or injured. But a new resource document issued by the EEOC … Continue Reading
Readers with long memories may remember my blog from a year ago regarding potentially offensive tattoos in the workplace. https://www.employmentlawworldview.com/offensive-tattoos-in-the-uk-workplace-come-on-be-reasonable/ That blog focused on the scenario where an employee bears a tattoo which offends another employee in the workplace, but what about a tattoo that you as employer feel is plainly inappropriate for the working … Continue Reading
On March 15, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) sent the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) its final rule expanding the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA”) overtime pay requirement. If you haven’t already heard, this rule will raise the threshold required to qualify for the FLSA’s “white collar” exemption to an … Continue Reading
Hollister Co. is ringing in the new year with a new lawsuit. On January 7, 2016, Hollister was slapped with a class action lawsuit alleging the retailer failed to properly compensate employees for scheduled “on-call” shifts. This litigation links Hollister with an increasing number of employers facing similar lawsuits, including well-known brands such as Forever21, BCBG … Continue Reading
On November 24, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (which hears appeals from federal district courts in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) issued a precedential opinion addressing when and whether an employer must pay an employee for meal periods. The case was filed by a group of corrections officers at a prison in … Continue Reading
“iPhone.” “Technological innovation.” “Jobs.” These are the words that come to mind when you think of technology giant Apple, Inc. You can now add “employee theft screening” to this list. On November 7, the Honorable William Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order granting Apple’s Motion … Continue Reading
Today is the day that the California Minimum Wage increases from $8 per hour to $9 per hour. In addition, because of this change the minimum monthly salary for employees in exempt executive, administrative and professional positions increases from $2,773.33 per month ($33,280 annually) to $3,120 per month ($37,440 annually). Check with your payroll folks … Continue Reading
Braced for Monday? D-Day on the new Flexible Working rules has finally arrived, and with it, some new questions for employers. Whether or not you expect waves of new flexible working applicants storming up your company’s beaches first thing on Monday morning may depend on the nature of your business. A CIPD survey in 2012 … Continue Reading
As an aficionado of blonde highlights with a side line in curling and straightening my own coiffure from time to time I was slightly sorry to see the new US Army regulations on personal appearance. For those not in the loop, the US Army has recently updated its grooming rules, and in doing so has … Continue Reading
A reported 1.3m people in the UK currently use e-cigarettes. Also known as “personal vaporisers”, which sounds like something straight out of Start Trek and not something you would want to tell the chap at Airport Security you had in your pocket, these give users the nicotine hit that they crave, apparently without exposing them … Continue Reading
While it is not beyond belief that students with tablets and smart phones might surreptitiously occupy their minds elsewhere during a lecture, this year’s Employmentlawworldview Oscar for Best Multitasking must surely go to the Swiss professor dismissed last week for watching porn while giving a lecture. What poise, what practice, what confidence that must take, … Continue Reading
In April 2012, we covered the California Supreme Court’s long-awaited clarification on state law regarding when and how meal and rest periods must be provided to non-exempt employees. Of note, employers must “provide” California employees with required meal breaks—meaning it need not police employees or force them to take meal breaks—after no more than five … Continue Reading
As we reported earlier, last year, New York amended its wage deduction statute [pdf] and greatly expanded categories of permissible deductions from employees’ pay. In an earlier post, we discussed the regulations interpreting Labor Law Section 193 proposed by the New York Department of Labor. The New York Department of Labor has now adopted those … Continue Reading
