Wage and Hour Defense Blog

As 2017 comes to a close, recent headlines have underscored the importance of compliance and training. In this Take 5, we review major workforce management issues in 2017, and their impact, and offer critical actions that employers should consider to minimize exposure:

1. Addressing Workplace Sexual Harassment in the Wake of #MeToo
2. A Busy 2017 Sets the Stage for Further Wage-Hour Developments
3. Your “Top Ten” Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
4. 2017: The Year of the Comprehensive Paid Leave Laws
5. Efforts Continue to Strengthen Equal Pay Laws in 2017

In 2017, a great many states and localities passed laws increasing minimum wages beginning on January 1, 2018. (Some passed laws that will be effective on July 1, 2018 or other dates.)

Below is a summary of the minimum wage updates (and related tipped minimum wage requirements, where applicable) that go into effect on January 1, 2018, unless otherwise indicated.

Our colleague Steven M. Swirsky at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Management Memo blog that will be of interest to our readers: “NLRB Reverses Key Rulings: Returns to Pre-Obama Board Test for Deciding Joint-Employer Status and for Determining Whether Handbooks, Rules and Policies Violate the NLRA – Assessment of 2014 Expedited Election Rules and Future Changes Also Announced.”

Following is an excerpt:

It should come as no surprise that recent days have seen a stream of significant decisions and other actions from the National Labor Relations Board as Board Chairman ...

Federal regulations have long provided that employees whose wages are subject to a tip credit must retain all tips they receive, with the exception that customarily tipped employees -- i.e. front-of the-house service employees -- are permitted to share in tips received.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) amended its tip regulations to limit tip pool participation to front-of-the-house employees regardless of whether a tip credit was applied to their wages.

Employers and hospitality industry advocacy groups reacted by filing lawsuits throughout the country ...