Wage and Hour Defense Blog

As if California employers were not already besieged with wage-hour class actions and agency complaints, the state’s controller has now decided to get in on the action.

As The Los Angeles Times reported last week, Controller John Chiang has initiated a new program he calls “Operation Pay-Up” to recover unpaid wages.  The article may be found here. 

In short, the Controller is using California’s Unclaimed Property Law to attempt to gain restitution of wages believed to be withheld from employees.  Any recovered wages that are unclaimed will be transferred to the state treasury ...

In August, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law HB 5622, amending the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA), which now recognizes for the first time payment of wages by payroll card. The law goes into effect on January 1, 2015. While the law provides a new option for Illinois employers, they must be careful to comply with the conditions under which payroll cards may be used.

Under the current Illinois law, employers are required to pay employees via check or direct deposit. The current law is silent as to whether payroll cards, which operate like debit cards, can be used to ...

David W. Garland, Chair of Epstein Becker Green’s Labor and Employment Steering Committee and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, will moderate “It’s In The Bag – Summary of Bag Check Litigation And Strategies For Minimizing Risk” at the National Retail Federation Human Resources Executive Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on October 15, 2014.

During this general session, retailers who are grappling with employee bag check litigation discuss what the industry can expect in litigation over employee compensation for time spent in bag checks to ...

As our readers know, for the purposes of certain blog entries, I have unilaterally declared that I am the Secretary of Labor.

Effective immediately:

1. The “computer professional” exemption applies to anyone with a salary of at least $800 per week whose primary duty requires “highly specialized knowledge of computers and software.”  The exemption now includes employees who provide help desk services, troubleshooting support, or who install hardware or software.
2. In regard to New York law, building owners who provide free apartments to their janitors can still count the value ...