Wage & Hour Defense Blog : Wage & Hour Lawyer & Attorney : Epstein Becker Green Law Firm : DOL Enforcement, FLSA Coverage

We are pleased to announce the release of a new version of our Wage & Hour Guide app that puts federal and state wage-hour laws at employers’ fingertips. To download the app, click here.

The new version features an updated main screen design; added support for iOS 6, iPhone 5, iPad Mini, and fourth generation iPad; improved search capabilities; enhanced attorney profiles; expanded email functionality for sharing guide content with others; and easier access to additional wage and hour information on EBG’s website, including the Wage and Hour Division Investigation Checklist  and other resources.    The new version continues to be offered at no cost.   

“The wage-hour app has proved to be an incredibly valuable tool for employers, answering many of their questions in seconds, while also providing them with a link to our wage-hour blog, where they can find developments in this ever important area of the law,”said Michael Kun, co-creator of the app and national Co-Chairperson of EBG’s Wage and Hour, Individual and Collective Actions practice group, in the Los Angeles office.

How Does the App Work?

Rather than searching through a variety of cumbersome resources to locate applicable wage and hour laws, users of the Wage & Hour Guide app can follow easy-to-navigate steps to find the answers to many of their questions, including citations of federal statutes, regulations, and guidelines, as well as those of California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Texas, and Virginia. The following state guides were added after the initial launch of the app: Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.  To provide the best experience possible, the app enables users to download the guide to their iPhone or iPad device for reference anywhere, at any time, with or without a connection. 

By Michael D. Thompson

From restaurants in New York to childcare providers in Arkansas to the garment industry in Southern California, Department of Labor investigators continue to uncover FLSA violations by conducting unannounced workplace inspections.

Accordingly, in January, we released our Wage and Hour Division Investigation Checklist for employers and have received terrific feedback with additional questions. Following up on your questions, we will be regularly posting FAQs as a regular feature of our Wage & Hour Defense Blog.

We previously blogged about how to prepare for an audit, and how to develop a general protocol for the investigation.  In this post, we will discuss which records should be made available to Wage Hour Investigators.

QUESTION:  Do we have to allow the DOL to inspect our private business records?  What records do we have to make available, and what documents should we withhold?

ANSWER:  Your company cannot rely on general claims of privacy or property rights as a basis for keeping the DOL from inspecting its wage and hour records .  In fact, Section 11(a) of the FLSA specifically authorizes representatives of the Department of Labor to investigate and gather data concerning wages, hours, and other employment practices:

• The inspector may review documents showing the employer’s annual dollar volume of business transactions, involvement in interstate commerce, and/or work on government contracts.  Those documents are inspected to determine if the employer is a covered enterprise under the FLSA, or if the employees are protected by the FLSA because their work involves them in interstate commerce.

If you are certain that the FLSA applies to your company or its employees, you may wish to discuss with the inspector whether you can stipulate to coverage and therefore eliminate or streamline this part of the inspection.

• Pursuant to Section 11(a), DOL investigators may review the wage hour records required by 29 C.F.R. Part 516.  Accordingly, an inspector may require your company to produce records for each of the company’s employees showing the employee’s (i) total daily or weekly straight-time earnings, and total premium pay for overtime hours; (ii) regular rate or pay for any workweek in which overtime compensation is paid; (iii) hours worked each workday and each workweek; and (iv) date of payment and the pay period covered by that payment.  An employer’s records must also show the amount and nature of each payment which is excluded from the “regular rate”, and any additions to or deductions from wages for each pay period.

Even if an inspection is the result of a specific complaint, the DOL generally will not limit its investigation to that complaint.  Rather, the DOL will likely review all personnel time records and payroll records to determine whether your company is in compliance with all aspects of the FLSA for all current and former employees on the employer's payroll for the past two to three years.

• The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division is responsible for ensuring compliance with the employment eligibility verification recordkeeping requirements.  Thus, the DOL inspector may demand access to your company’s I-9 forms.

Refusing to produce documents requested by DOL investigators will generally do little more than antagonize the DOL.  However, employers should endeavor to avoid producing:    

• Documents that were not specifically requested:  For example, if the inspector only requests records of wages and hours worked, don’t produce your job descriptions.  Similarly, if the investigator asks for employees’ I-9 forms, don’t turn over their entire personnel files.

There is often one exception to this rule.  Hopefully, your company has implemented a policy (i) prohibiting improper deductions and (ii) including a complaint mechanism through which employees may seek reimbursement for any improper deductions.  If followed, such a policy creates “safe harbor” that can protect the exempt status of employees who are subject to improper deductions.  That policy, therefore, should be provided to the DOL investigator.

• Any analysis of the company’s wage hour issues prepared or requested by the company itself:  A self- audit of your company’s wage and hour practices is useful in identifying and correcting violations of the FLSA.  However, the DOL is likely to accept your conclusions about any violations identified in the audit, while giving no deference to any conclusions in your favor.  Therefore, you should not provide DOL investigators with a copy of your self-audit or similar materials.               
• Trade secret or confidential business information:  Question the request to inspect trade secret or confidential business information, and discuss whether confidential information may be redacted from the requested records.  If you do produce such records, label them “Confidential and Proprietary.”

After locating the records to be produced to the DOL inspector, you should retain the original copies of every record produced to the DOL and track all documents produced on a Document Control Log.

In our next FAQ, we will discuss how to handle a “walkaround” inspection of the facility, in which the DOL inspector observes employee duties and looks for wage and hour violations.

Be sure to check out our Wage and Hour Division Investigation Checklist for more helpful tips and advice about preparing for and managing a Wage Hour Inspection. 

By Michael D. Thompson

The prohibition against private settlements of FLSA claims was scrutinized again last week, when U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York held that parties could voluntarily dismiss an FLSA lawsuit without obtaining approval of the settlement agreement from the court.  Picerni v. Bilingual SEIT & Preschool Inc. 

Courts in FLSA cases have historically expressed the concern that individual waivers of FLSA rights would enable employers to use their superior bargaining power to extract individual waivers from their employees and “thwart the legislative policy [that the FLSA] was designed to effectuate.”  Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O’Neill. 

Accordingly, in 1982, the Eleventh Circuit held that disputes under the FLSA could not be settled without the approval of a court or the Department of Labor.  Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. United States.

However, in August 2012, we blogged about the Fifth Circuit’s decision to uphold the enforcement of a private settlement agreement resolving FLSA claims.  Martin v. Spring Break ’83 Productions LLC.  The United States Supreme Court subsequently declined to review the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and settle the split between the circuits.

Thus, when the issue arose in Picerni, the District Court considered whether a prohibition on private settlements for FLSA cases “runs afoul” of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41.  That rule provides that a federal lawsuit, with certain exceptions, may be voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff before the defendant files an answer, and may thereafter be dismissed through a stipulation signed by all parties.

The District Court held that FLSA claims were subject to F.R.Civ.P. 41 and therefore the parties were allowed to dismiss their own lawsuit.

However, the District Court made it clear that it was offering no opinion regarding the enforceability of the underlying settlement agreement.

The Court cited Lynn Foods for the proposition that “[m]ost courts have at least suggested in dictum, if not held, that a private FLSA settlement will not be enforced without court approval.”  The District Court further noted that “[o]ther courts have allowed private settlements if the circumstances, when examined in subsequent litigation, are found fair” or “when the court finds that a plaintiff has received in settlement 100% of the wages that he should have been paid.”  See Martinez v. Bohls Bearing Equipment Co.; Mackenzie v. Kindred Hospitals East. L.L.C. 

Thus, the District Court stated that the parties could agree to a private settlement and dismiss their FLSA lawsuit.  In settling the matter without court or DOL approval, however, the parties assumed the risk that the settlement agreement might not be enforced to bar subsequent litigation. 

Nevertheless, “if parties want to take their chances that their settlement will not be effective,” the District Court stated that it would permit them to do so.

The ruling by the District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Picerni, in conjunction with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Martin, signal an increasing willingness to accept the private settlement of FLSA cases.  However, employers should consider whether the need to keep such an agreement private outweighs the possibility that the agreement will not be enforced to preclude further litigation of the same claims.

By Michael Kun

EBG’s free wage-hour app, which allows users to access federal law and the laws of many states, has been updated to include Massachusetts law. 

The app can be dowloaded here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/wage-hour-guide/id500292238?mt=8

By Kara Maciel and Casey Cosentino

The restaurant and hospitality industries are no strangers to the tidal wave of wage and hour class action lawsuits. Restaurants and hotel operators located in states with employee-friendly laws like Massachusetts, New York, and California, are particularly vulnerable. This vulnerability was recently confirmed on April 30, 2012, when Texas Roadhouse, Inc. agreed to pay $5 million to settle a putative class action suit filed by wait staff employees from nine restaurants in Massachusetts.

In Crenshaw, et. al, v. Texas Roadhouse, Inc. (No. 11-10549-JLT), the plaintiffs alleged that Texas Roadhouse violated Massachusetts Tips Law by retaining and distributing proceeds from their gratuities to managers and other non-wait staff employees, including hosts/hostesses. Additionally, because the plaintiffs did not receive all of their gratuities, they asserted that Texas Roadhouse improperly claimed the tip credit against the minimum wage in violation of Massachusetts Minimum Wage Law. As such, Texas Roadhouse allegedly paid the plaintiffs less than minimum wage. The plaintiffs, therefore, argued that they were entitled to full minimum wage for all hours worked.

Under Massachusetts law, employees who receive at least $20 per month in gratuities may be paid $2.63 per hour (“tip credit”), provided that the gratuities and hourly pay rate when added together are equal to or greater than the state minimum wage of $8.00. If the employee does not receive the equivalent of the minimum hourly wage with his or her tips, the restaurant or hotel must pay the difference. Although restaurants and hotel operators are prohibited from retaining employees’ gratuities, they may distribute properly pooled tips. Accordingly, when the tip credit is claimed to satisfy the minimum wage, only employees who customarily and regularly receive tips are eligible to participate in the tip pool. These employees include wait staff employees (e.g., banquet servers and bussers); service employees (e.g. baggage handlers and bellhops); and bartenders. Conversely, employees not eligible for tip pool arrangements include kitchen staff, cooks, chefs, dishwashers, and janitors. Also, under no circumstances are employers, owners, managers, or supervisors permitted to share in the tip pool.  

The Texas Roadhouse settlement illustrates the importance of adhering to state and federal minimum wage laws. A violation of a tip pool arrangement can lead to high exposure for restaurants and hotels, not only with respect to money wrongfully withheld from employees, but also with potential tip credit violations. With the flood of class action suits, restaurants and hotel operators must continue to make compliance with wage and hour laws a top priority. As a best practice, restaurants and hotel operators should conduct regular self-audits of their wage and hour practices, in consultation with legal counsel. Identifying and correcting wage and hour mishaps before plaintiffs collectively seek action is the first defense to preventing class action suits and reducing legal liability.

By:  Kara M. Maciel

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in Norfolk, Virginia has announced that it will be stepping up its compliance audits and enforcement efforts against area hotels. In the past few years, the DOL stated it found violations at about 60% of local hotels. According to the DOL, the agency recently made spot checks at 10 area hotels since April. This is just one part of the agency’s nationwide enforcement program and its “Plan/Prevent/Protect” initiative against the hospitality industry. Common violations assessed by the DOL include:

·         Payment of overtime. Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to overtime for any hours worked over 40 per week. For employers who have multiple hotels or facilities, when employees work at different locations in a work week, it is imperative that the employer coordinate its payroll systems to aggregate the employee’s time worked at both jobs in order to ensure that proper overtime is being paid. The DOL is finding that when an employee works at one hotel 20 hours per week, and 25 hours at another hotel, the employee is not paid overtime.   

·         Unlawful deductions. Many hospitality employers require employees to reimburse the hotel for a uniform through payroll deductions. However, an employer may not lawfully deduct from an employee’s wages for the cost of a uniform if it reduces the employee’s hourly wage below the minimum wage. Thus, for employees who are paid the minimum wage or tipped employees for whom the employer takes the tip credit, the hotel cannot deduct for a uniform if it drops the employee below the minimum wage.     

·         Working through meal breaks. Another common violation in the hospitality industry relates to workplaces in which the employer voluntarily provides a meal break. Under the FLSA, an employee, who is provided with a bona fide meal break, must be completely relieved of duty.  If an employee clocks out for lunch, and then is asked to clock back in to perform some work, the employee must be paid for the entire meal break, and not just for the time back on the clock. For many employers who automatically deduct for meal breaks or who fail to pay for the full meal period when it is interrupted, this could represent a significant liability. 

Now, more than ever, employers in the hospitality industry should be vigilant in their wage and hour compliance with federal and state law. Especially in light of the DOL’s recent roll-out of its Smartphone “app,” which allows workers to track their hours and evaluate the amount of overtime earned, workers are being armed with ample resources to bring claims of unpaid wage against the employers. 

By Amy J. Traub

The New York State Department of Labor recently issued a proposed rule which would combine the current wage orders for the restaurant and hotel industries to form a single Minimum Wage Order for the Hospitality Industry.  If adopted, the Wage Order would affect requirements related to the minimum wage, tip credits and pooling, customer service charges, allowances, overtime calculations, and other common issues within the restaurant and hotel industries.  Additionally, the Wage Order would provide helpful guidance for traditionally ambiguous wage issues such as the handling of service charges and the definition of an employee uniform for purposes of a laundry allowance.  Highlights of the Wage Order include:

·         Minimum Wage (Effective January 1, 2011) 

o       Food service workers would need to receive at least $5.00 per hour and no more than $2.25 per hour in tip credits; however, the total of tips they receive plus their hourly wages would need to amount to $7.25 per hour

o       Service employees (at non-resort hotels) would need to receive at least $5.65 per hour and no more than $1.60 per hour in tip credits; however, the total of tips they receive plus their hourly wages would need to amount to $7.25 per hour

o       Service employees (resort hotel employees) would need to receive at least $4.90 per hour and no more than $2.35 per hour in tip credits; however their weekly average for tips would need to be at least $4.10 per hour 

·         Notifications to Employees and Customers 

o       Prior to beginning employment, employers now would need to notify employees that they are taking a tip credit from their wages

o       Employers would need to notify employees of any changes to their hourly rate of pay

o       Employers would need to notify customers of any charge that is neither for food/beverage nor a gratuity to a service employee; for example, a banquet or special function charge 

·         No More Set-Off of Wages Paid in Excess of Minimum Wage 

o       Employers would need to pay an additional hour at the rate of minimum wage for each hour the employee works beyond 10 hours per day, regardless of whether the rate of pay for the first 10 hours is above the minimum wage

·         No More Salary for Non-Exempt Employees 

o       Currently, a non-exempt employee can still be paid a salary so long as he/she is paid one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked beyond 40 hours during the week

o       If adopted, the Wage Order would require that all non-exempt workers (except commissioned salespersons) are paid on an hourly basis 

·         Tip Pooling 

o       Employers could require food service workers to join a tip pool

o       This would not apply to employees who do not provide direct food service to customers (however, a host/hostess who seats guests would be considered a direct food service employee and therefore eligible to participate in a tip pool) 

·         Increased Guidance 

o       Employers would be able to retain service charges if, and only if, they clearly explain to customers that such charges are not distributed to service employees

o       The Wage Order would exclude from the definition of “uniform” any clothing that may be worn as part of an employee’s wardrobe outside of work

o       Employers would not need to reimburse employees for the laundry expenses of any uniform clothing that can be washed with the employee’s non-uniform clothing; for example, a uniform that does not require dry cleaning

The new Wage Order signifies the New York State Department of Labor’s attempt to simplify the wage and hour rules for the restaurant and hotel industries while stepping up its enforcement of overtime and deduction violations, particularly with respect to non-exempt employees who are currently paid a salary as opposed to an hourly wage.   Of course, these highlighted changes are only a portion of the changes that would come into effect in the event the Wage Order is adopted in its entirety.

By Doug Weiner

In a recently reported case, Applebee’s’ servers alleged they spent a “substantial” amount of time performing non-tipped work, such as cleaning and maintenance, and should be paid the minimum wage 29 U.S.C § 206(A)(1)(c) of $7.25 rather than the direct wage 29 U.S.C. § 203(m) of $2.13 the FLSA 29 U.S.C. § 203(t) allows 29 C.F.R. § 516.28 tipped employees. Fast v. Applebee's International, Inc.  

Applebee’s contends there is no “dual job”, 29 C.F.R. § 531.56(e) as the server’s primary duty is customer satisfaction, and cleaning and maintenance duties are related to the servers primary duty. The court held it was a question of law which duties were included in the definition of a “tipped occupation”, and questions of fact which duties employees actually performed, and the time spent performing them.

The court denied the restaurant’s motion for summary judgment, rejecting the argument that the duties of, for example, cleaning bathrooms are related to the duties of serving food. However, the court emphasized it was the servers’ burden to prove they had worked more than 20% of their time performing non tipped work. Myers v. Copper Cellar Corp., 192 F.3d 546 (6th Cir. 1999)

Certified for appeal to the Eighth Circuit is the district court's holding that Section 30d00(e) of the Department of Labor's Field Operations Handbook is persuasive authority for the holding that, where more than 20% of a tipped employee's time is spent on non tipped work, the employer cannot take the tip credit for that time, and must pay the full minimum wage committed to non-tipped work. 

As an example of how fact specific each case must be analyzed, EBG wage & hour litigator Mark Beutler, in a case involving skycaps, successfully persuaded a court that incidental duties, such as bringing the bags to security were related to the tipped duty of serving the customer. In that case, the court found that all of the skycaps’ duties constituted tipped work, so there was no application of the 20% rule. Pellon v. Business Representation Int'l, Inc., 528 F. Supp. 2d 1306 (S.D. Fla. 2007). The court also held that to segregate the various tasks performed by skycaps, for purposes of assessing whether they were germane or not to the job of skycap, would be infeasible and require constant surveillance. The Pellon decision was later affirmed by the Eleventh Circuit.   

Dual jobs may exist in many varieties. There may be servers who are asked to perform duties as ice sculpturs, or pastry decorators, or floral arrangers. There may be bussers who make salads or wash dishes between lunch and dinner. Employers are well advised to keep good records of the time employees spend performing each duty in a dual job circumstance. See 29 C.F.R. § 785.13 The court emphasized it was an employer’s duty to record the time spent in tipped and non-tipped work.  29 C.F.R. § 516.28 

Douglas Weiner formerly served the U.S. Department of Labor as Senior Trial Attorney for the New York Regional Solicitor’s office for many years. He now exclusively represents management in wage hour and other employment matters.

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