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FLSA

To pay or not to pay: Interns aren’t just a source of free labor

07/09/2013
It’s summertime, and college interns are filling corporate America’s cubicles. How many of those fresh-faced kids are wage-and-hour lawsuits just waiting to happen?

Starbucks shift bosses tipped, assistant managers stiffed

07/09/2013
The New York Court of Appeal—the state’s highest court—has ruled that Starbucks baristas in New York must share tips with their shift supervisors. Assistant managers, however, are out of luck. The court said they don’t get a cut of the nickels, dimes and quarters left in the jars on the Starbucks counters.

What should we do? Our summer intern is suddenly demanding back pay?

07/05/2013
Q. We hired an intern for the summer. She was eager to work for free to add it to her résumé … We told her that after this week we won’t need her. That’s when she said we owe her minimum wage or she’ll complain to the Department of Labor. Do we really have to pay her?

How to reduce wage-and-hour lawsuit risks (and defend yourself if sued)

07/05/2013
During a recent 12-month period, more than 7,750 wage-and-hour lawsuits were filed in federal courts, an increase of almost 10% over the preceding 12 months. Pennsylvania once again ranked among the top 10 states for such new lawsuits. The good news: There are ways for employers to reduce the risk of wage-and-hour suits, and strengthen their defenses if one is filed.

Directory assistance giant settles wage suit for $1.3M

07/05/2013
Kgb USA will pay $1.3 million to 14,568 workers across the country it misclassified as independent contractors. The company paid the ­workers piece rate for each text message they responded to, regardless of how many hours they worked.

What are the rules for providing, paying for employee uniforms?

06/27/2013
Q. We would like to require employees to pay for their own uniforms. Is this legal? If not, we would like to require employees to purchase uniforms. Then we would reimburse them. Is that OK, or must we purchase the uniforms and provide them to the employees?

Adult care facilities cited for wage theft violations

06/27/2013
Three Bay Area adult care facilities face nearly $600,000 in fines for not paying overtime or the minimum wage and failing to provide meal breaks.

Pay regular salary to preserve exempt status

06/27/2013
Adhere to standard payroll practices if you want to avoid paying unnecessary overtime for otherwise exempt employees. One of those standards is to pay a set salary regardless of the quantity or quality of work performed in a particular week.

Who pays for required work uniforms?

06/26/2013
Q. We are considering instituting a uniform policy at our workplace. We would like to require our employees to pay for their own uniforms. Is this legal? Could we also require employees to maintain their own uniforms?

Court rules firing based on lactation is sex discrimination under Title VII, PDA

06/26/2013
The EEOC has won a major case in its ongoing efforts to help lactating women who want to return to work. The 5th Circuit has accepted the commission’s interpretation that firing a woman who needs a place to express milk at work is both sex discrimination under Title VII and violates the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) because lactation is related to pregnancy.