Wages & Hours

Closing early due to snow: Must we pay for full day?

01/05/2010

Q. During inclement weather, we sometimes close the office early and send employees home. Do we have to pay them for the whole day?

FLSA: Record-Keeping Requirements

01/02/2010

HR Law 101: The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep records on wages, hours and other employee data, most of which is generally maintained in ordinary business practice. You do not need to keep the records in any particular form or use time clocks …

Internal wage-and-hour complaints don’t count as ‘testimony’ in FLSA retaliation cases

12/24/2009

The Fair Labor Standards Act includes a retaliation clause that bars employers from punishing employees who provide “testimony” in FLSA cases. That doesn’t mean, however, that employees who complain internally about wage-and-hour issues are automatically protected.

Philly area hospital workers lose lunch break, file lawsuit

12/23/2009

Workers at nine Philadelphia area hospitals have filed a class-action overtime lawsuit claiming the hospitals’ practice of automatically deducting lunch periods deprives them of overtime pay.

Joint-employer status may come down to who cuts the paychecks

12/22/2009

You may be liable for wage-and-hour violations involving people you don’t ordinarily think of as actual employees. That’s because California uses a long list of factors to consider when deciding whether someone is an employee. One of those factors: Who provides the individual’s paycheck and makes tax deductions? Another factor: Who gives directions to the worker?

Shoe’s on other foot now as Puma agrees to wage settlement

12/22/2009

Puma North America has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay on time about $350,000 to hundreds of employees. Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank conditionally certified the class to include the company’s hourly, nonexempt retail store employees who received late paychecks between 2004 and 2008.

Check your records! Some old pay-bias cases get new life under Ledbetter law

12/15/2009

When President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act nearly a year ago, some employees got an additional chance to press their pay discrimination claims. That’s because the new law covers Equal Pay Act claims pending at the EEOC or in federal court as of May 28, 2007. Tip: If you haven’t already done so, now’s the time to review your compensation program to check for hidden sex bias.

Check your pay rates! Obvious male/female disparity is probably ‘willful’ discrimination

12/14/2009

The Equal Pay Act makes it illegal to base unequal pay on gender. If an employee can show that a violation was “willful,” she has up to three years to sue after the last allegedly discriminatory paycheck; only two years if it’s not willful. Heads up: Courts will probably call any obvious wage disparity a “willful” violation.

Beware professional exemption if college degree isn’t required

12/09/2009

Before concluding that a white-collar and seemingly professional skilled and scientific job is exempt from overtime, get expert advice. Blindly deciding that the job is exempt may mean trouble down the line.

Paterson: ‘Shared Work’ saved more than 10,000 jobs last year