News

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act isn’t the only wage-and-hour law employers must honor. Many states and municipalities have their own laws that are just as binding. Ignoring them can spell big trouble.

With each change in administration, there’s a change in how federal agencies operate. When President-elect Trump takes office Jan. 20, expect rapid change at the U.S. Department of Labor.

California arguably has the most restrictive independent contractor rules of all. Following them means you likely will pass any of the less stringent tests with flying colors.

The Department of Labor has appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that overturned the Biden administration’s rule that would have made some 4 million more white-collar workers eligible for overtime pay.

It sounds Dickensian—some employees with disabilities working under so-called Section 14(c) certificates earn $1 or less an hour. The Department of Labor wants to end this practice. New proposed regulations would, if finalized, phase out these certificates, so employees with disabilities would need to be paid at least the minimum wage.

Employees who are properly classified as exempt are paid on a salary basis. Because you must pay them their full salary in any week when they perform any work, there’s generally no need to track every hour and minute they work. But what happens if you classified the worker incorrectly and she wasn’t an exempt employee after all?

What should employers do now that the overtime rule has been overturned? The good news is they won’t need to raise salaries on Jan. 1. But what about reversing the changes made in good faith back in July? Here are your options.

We pay a $1,000 signing bonus to new employees in exchange for agreeing to commit to working for us for at least one year. A new employee requested a three-month leave of absence for the birth of her child; the leave would begin six months after her hire date. Can we pay the bonus in two parts?

A federal judge in Texas on Nov. 15 struck down the Department of Labor rule that granted overtime pay to 1 million white-collar workers in July and would have made another 3 million eligible for overtime pay on Jan. 1.

For decades, employers have hoped that with each revision of the DOL overtime rules, employers can finally offer their workers time off instead of overtime pay. Commonly referred to as “comp time,” employees could choose to accept time off later instead of overtime. The idea is that employees might prefer this because time off may help hourly workers achieve more work/life balance.