Wage and Hour Defense Blog

By: Jeffrey M. Landes and Susan Gross Sholinsky

The presentation slides and the recording for the webinar - Creating and Maintaining a Lawful Internship Program - are now accessible for your viewing. If you would like to review, please contact Kiirsten Lederer to obtain instructions.

During this timely and important webinar, we discussed how to minimize both your organization's liability and the risk of wage and hour lawsuits. Specifically, participants walked away with answers to the following questions:

• What are the best practices for recruiting and hiring interns, and what ...

My colleagues have a new post on the Retail Labor and Employment Law blog that will help many of our readers at this time of year: "Summer's Coming! How to Handle Unpaid Internships," by Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Nancy L. Gunzenhauser.

 by Brian Steinbach

On May 5, 2014, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed a bill increasing the minimum wage to $10.10, in 5 steps by July 1, 2018. This follows recent legislation in suburban Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties that will increase county minimum wages to $11.50 in various steps by October 1, 2017. (See our January 20, 2014 blog post.)

Employers in Maryland now face three different local minimum wage requirements, in addition to those imposed by federal law.

Under the new Maryland law, the general state minimum wage, currently the federal ...

In a complimentary webinar on May 22 (1:00 p.m. ET), our colleagues Jeffrey M. Landes and Susan Gross Sholinsky will present a webinar on how to strategically structure internship programs to comply with applicable wage and hour guidelines.

Join us for a discussion on how to minimize both your organization's liability and the risk of wage and hour lawsuits. In particular, below are just a few of the many questions we will address during the webinar:

• What are the best practices for recruiting and hiring seasonal interns, and what critical language should you include (or avoid) in ...

By Kara Maciel

Our national hospitality practice frequently advises restaurant owners and operators on whether it is legal for employers to pass credit card swipe fees onto employees or even to guests, and the short answer is, yes, in most states.  But whether an employer wants to actually pass along this charge and risk alienating their staff or their customers is another question.

With respect to consumers, in the majority of states, passing credit card swipe fees along in a customer surcharge became lawful in 2013.  Only ten states prohibit it:  California, Colorado, Connecticut ...

An NLRB Administrative Law Judge found that an employee who instituted a wage-hour class action lawsuit engaged in concerted activity with his co-workers, even if none of those co-workers were aware of the suit.

By Michael Kun

If employers with operations in California believed that they could not possibly face more wage claims than they already do, they can think again.

The California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”) – the state agency that addresses wage claims – has launched a new website designed to notify employees of their rights and explain how to file claims:

http://www.wagetheftisacrime.com/What-We-Do.html#laborCommissioner

The website provides detailed information about the various types of claims individuals may bring, and how to bring ...