The U.S. Department of Labor rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) take effect on March 11, 2024. Has your business procrastinated in preparing for them? If so, do not worry; I’ve got your back. Join me on…
Articles Posted in Wage and Hour
Instead of hiring a lawyer, a business owner ordered to pay wages used AI to prepare his appeal. It was a giant clusterf**k!
A multi-year dispute over unpaid wages went from bad to a whole lot worse for a Midwest business owner when he decided to appeal a trial court ruling that he owed over $300k in wages, damages, and attorney’s fees by representing himself and hiring an “online consultant” who used artificial…
Should Mrs. Doubtfire have been paid overtime?
It’s not like I woke up in a cold sweat, fixated on this obscure bit of Fair Labor Standards Act minutiae. But I did read this Eleventh Circuit decision last night, which did posit whether “Julie Andrews’s Mary Poppins, Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma, Fran Drescher’s Nanny Fine, Robin Williams’s Mrs.…
Folks, we have our first lawsuit to try to KO the DOL’s new independent contractor rule
It took less than a week for a group of freelance writers and editors to file this federal court lawsuit to block enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rules, which I wrote about here last week. If you thought the DOL’s final rule would sail through without…
Let’s revisit how to handle FMLA and FLSA for a snow day office closure.
Back in the day, the mere promise of Cheerios and chocolate milk was all it took to dupe my two oldest kids (then three and five) to shovel the driveway for a few hours. Come to think of it, I preferred the stick to the carrot. So I probably threatened…
Join me on Wednesday, January 17, at 1 PM for a webinar on the new DOL Independent Contractor Rules
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which I wrote about here. This week, I’m co-presenting “Independent Contractor Update – How Am I to Determine if I Am Compliant?”…
Today’s free “wage and hour 101” post is the silver lining to an employer’s $1.6M screw-up
The Fair Labor Standards Act can be a veritable legal liability minefield for the uninitiated. Just ask several of my friends who practice law on the plaintiff’s side. Heck, it can put an employment lawyer’s kids through college, no matter on which side of the “v” they practice. 😏 Last…
Here are five things for employers to know about the DOL’s new independent contractor rule
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In a nutshell, the final rule applies six factors — none of which is dispositive — to analyze employee or independent…
New employment laws may not just expose employers to liability; they may double it!
Among the top employment issues that companies will need to navigate in 2024 is enforcing laws that have more recently taken effect. Take the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, for example. The PUMP Act, which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act, took effect in December 2022. It provides additional workplace…
281,870 reasons not to attempt a kickback scheme to avoid paying overtime
It’s not often that I attempt to locate images for blog posts using ‘kickback’ as a search term. But when I do, rest assured that some employer really stepped in it. Last year, I wrote about a home healthcare agency that allegedly retaliated against employees for cooperating with a U.S. Department…