Gratuities are often helpful for both employees and their employers: tips supplement a worker’s income, and federal law and the laws of most states allow employers to credit a portion of a worker’s tips toward the company’s minimum wage obligations. But what exactly is a tip and how do employers take this so-called “tip credit?”
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … the Tip Credit
Generally speaking, the FLSA requires that employers pay employees the required minimum wage and overtime for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in any workweek (at a rate of one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay). Accordingly, courts have consistently held that the FLSA provides employees with a basis to sue for the recovery of unpaid wages if an employee is paid below the required minimum wage or an employee is not adequately compensated for overtime hours worked in excess of 40 hours.
But what about claims that do not fit neatly into either of those two buckets? Cue in gap-time claims.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Gap-Time Claims
We seem to say this every year — December always seems to go by far too fast. And with holidays and vacations, not to mention many employees still working remotely, it’s not unusual for matters to be put off until the new year — or for a project or two to fall through the cracks.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … New State and Local Minimum Wage Rates Go Into Effect On January 1, 2023
California plaintiffs’ lawyers typically bring every type of wage-hour claim they can. Increasingly, however, they have focused on one type of claim – wage statement violations.
As we have previously written about, bringing class and representative actions under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) alleging that employers did not fully comply with California’s onerous wage statement laws has become a lucrative practice for the plaintiffs’ bar. Given the flurry of litigation, it is beneficial for employers that do business in California to review their wage statements to best ensure compliance.
Employers based outside of California can suffer knockout blows if they enter the ring as employers in California and operate under the mistaken assumption that adherence to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is the same as complying with the California Labor Code and Wage Orders. Below are the main ways (but certainly not the only ways) employers are “caught cold” because they do not receive or apply California wage-and-hour training and learn the hard way that the plaintiffs’ bar will not pull any punches.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Avoiding Common California Wage and Hour Mistakes and “Going the Distance”
As COVID-19 restrictions have continued to loosen or be lifted altogether, employees have gradually resumed working in the office—and traveling away from it for work-related reasons. When it comes to travel time in the employment context, the answer to the question, “Do I need to pay for that?” often has no straightforward answer. Rather, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) regulations, whether time an employee spends traveling is compensable depends on the type of travel. In this month’s Time Is Money segment, we provide a refresher on when and how employers must pay employees for travel time.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Travel Time Pay
Neither fish nor fowl
Salaried with overtime
Brings pain and regret
We don’t see a lot of wage and hour poetry these days, but if we did, it would probably look a bit like the foregoing example from an anonymous former U.S. Department of Labor official. When it comes to paying office workers who do not qualify for an overtime exemption, businesses often look for ways to treat those workers as much like exempt personnel as possible, including by paying wages in the form of a salary rather than hourly pay. Salaried nonexempt status ordinarily starts with good motives, but it frequently ends with claims for unpaid overtime. In this month’s Time Is Money segment, we explain that although paying overtime-eligible employees on a salary basis is a lawful, available option, it comes with significant risks that an employer must understand and navigate in order to pay these workers correctly.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Salaried Nonexempt Status
Misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees is a costly mistake. Among the many issues arising from misclassification is potential liability under federal and state minimum wage and overtime laws. As the laws continue to change and develop, so do the risks to contracting entities.
Federal Changes
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Independent Contractor Classification
The doctrine “joint employer” liability has received significant attention in recent months, including on this blog. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employee may be deemed to have multiple employers—each of whom would be liable jointly for all aspects of FLSA compliance, including with regard to the payment of wages—in connection with his or her performance of the same work. During the prior administration, the U.S. DOL issued a rule intended to standardize the parameters of joint employer liability. Months later, however, a federal court invalidated a portion of the new rule, holding that it impermissibly narrowed the scope of the joint employer doctrine. And, in July 2021, the DOL announced its outright repeal of the rule—i.e., whether a business might face joint employer liability will again be governed by the multi-factor “economic reality” test subject to varying judicial interpretations.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … New York’s New Rule on Contractors’ Liability for Subcontractor Employee Wages
Many New York families employ domestic workers –individuals who care for a child, serve as a companion for a sick, convalescing or elderly person, or provide housekeeping or any other domestic service. They may be unaware of federal and New York requirements that guarantee those domestic workers minimum wage for all hours worked, paid meal breaks, and overtime compensation.
In addition, New York imposes specific requirements on employers regarding initial pay notices, pay frequency, and pay statements that also apply to persons who employ domestic workers.
To avoid inadvertent wage and hour violations, it is important that persons who employ domestic workers in New York understand the relevant laws regarding domestic workers and approach what many understandably consider a personal relationship as a formal, business one for wage and hour purposes.
Continue Reading Time Is Money: A Quick Wage-Hour Tip on … Compensating Domestic Workers in New York